Bruce Bartlett discusses the many Americans who pay no Federal Income Taxes whatsoever. As we all know, a lot of poor folks don't, though they pay a disproportionate portion of their income in sales taxes, payroll taxes and other ways. There's just something wrong though when someone whose income is over a million dollars a year can get away without paying anything in income taxes.
This was an issue that greatly bothered my father who spent most of his adult years working for the Internal Revenue Service and hating every minute of it. There was zero doubt in his mind that during the Nixon Administration, the I.R.S. went real, real easy on rich people (especially rich people who'd donated to Nixon) who paid little or no taxes, sometimes via legal loopholes — of which there were many — but sometimes just by lying and cheating. This was offset by wringing more dollars out of the poor and middle class. Many lower-class people paid more so one rich guy didn't have to pay at all. Looks like not a lot has changed.