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July 22, 2010

READERS' FORUM: July 23, 2010

Andy Amey The Tribune-Star The Tribune Star Thu Jul 22, 2010, 11:00 PM EDT

TERRE HAUTE — Buying power of the wealthy ‘obscenely’ high



Joyce McWilliams’ July 17 essay, “Across the Board tax cuts were a great fiscal accomplishment,” is a sneaky way of seeking sympathy for the wealthy.

According to Wikipedia, while federal income taxes in the U.S. generally consume between 15-35 percent of an individual’s income, citizens of Belgium lose anywhere from 25-50 percent to income taxes. Japan can be even more confiscatory, with tax rates ranging from 5 percent on low amounts of income to as much as 50 percent on higher amounts.

Likewise, the Netherlands imposes tax rates as high as 52 percent on high income. But no country is as grasping as Denmark, with a top personal income tax rate of 59 percent. Thus, when we look at the overall tax burden, the U.S. is quite low.

What Mc Williams did not say as to how much of money after taxes do the wealthy get to keep compared to the middle and lower income groups? And the price structure of goods and services is the same for the wealthy or the poor alike.

When the wealthy, the poor or middle class individuals buy any (state) sales taxable items all pay the tax at the same rate.

In short, the buying power of the wealthy is “obscenely” (to borrow the word from Citizen Tomasi) high as compared to the middle or lower class individuals.

In an interesting piece, “The World’s Happiest Countries,” on Yahoo Travel of July 18, we find: “The five happiest countries in the world — Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands all enjoy high levels of prosperity.” Notice, Denmark is one of the highest taxed countries in the world, yet the happiest. And sadly, the U.S. is way down in the index of happiness.

The highest taxed nations like Denmark are the happiest because they take care of their people. They haven’t wasted money on wars for several generations now.

Finally, according to Office for Social Justice, the top 10 percent of Americans own 71 percent of all private wealth. The top 1 percent now own more than the bottom 90 percent. Among the industrialized nations, the U.S. has the highest concentration of individual wealth — roughly three times that of the No. 2 nation, Germany (UN Human Development Report, 1998).

How have such disparities occurred? The answer is by keeping a lot more after paying taxes and creating an ever widening gap in compensation between the top earners and the average worker.



— Khwaja  A.  Hasan

 Wadsworth, Ill.

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Copyright 2012 News From Terre Haute, Indiana. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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