Don't be Like the Citizens of Greece, Pay Your Taxes

Here are some stats from the 2009 tax season:
- The Top 1% (>$500,000) paid 40.4% of total federal taxes.
- Of the 307.8 million Americans, 151.5 million were tax units (I guess eligible to pay taxes?).
- 47% of the 151.5 million, had ZERO tax liability.
- Of the 307.8 million Americans, 80.4 million paid taxes.
- The Top 25% (>$75,000) paid 86.6% of total federal taxes.
- The Top 50% (>$40,000) paid 97.1% of total federal taxes.
- The Bottom 50% paid 2.9% of total federal taxes.

Here are some historical tax rates by earners:

From Wikipedia: In economics, the Laffer curve is a theoretical representation of the relationship between government revenue raised by taxation and all possible rates of taxation. It is used to illustrate the concept of taxable income elasticity – that taxable income will change in response to changes in the rate of taxation. The Laffer curve postulates that no tax revenue will be raised at the extreme tax rates of 0% and 100%.

One potential result of the Laffer curve is that increasing tax rates beyond a certain point will be counterproductive for raising further tax revenue. A hypothetical Laffer curve for any given economy can only be estimated and such estimates are controversial.

This graph is based on the results from "How Far Are We From The Slippery Slope? The Laffer Curve Revisited" by Mathias Trabandt and Harald Uhlig, NBER Working Paper No. 15343, September 2009. Their research estimated Laffer Curve maximum revenue points to be between 60% to 80% tax rates.

Source: http://visualizingeconomics.com/2010/02/05/who-is-not-paying-taxes/
Source: http://visualizingeconomics.com/2007/11/03/nytimes-historical-tax-rates-by-income-group/
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LafferCurve.svg