You Call This Tax Fairness?

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

Redistribution: Imagine lower-income families watching their incomes drop while their tax burden goes up. Patently unfair, right? Yet it actually happened under President Obama.

 

According to a Tax Foundation analysis of new IRS data, the bottom half of income-tax filers paid 36% more in taxes in 2011 than they did in 2010 — even though their incomes barely budged.

 

The top half, in contrast, saw their tax burden climb only 9%. The average tax rate paid by the bottom half has climbed every year under Obama, going from 2.35% in 2009 to 3.13% in 2011.

 

Viewed another way, the share of "adjusted gross income" earned by the bottom half fell slightly in 2011, but their share of income taxes paid actually rose — the first such increase since 1989.

 

Yes, these are small changes to small numbers, and were driven in part by the winding down of various stimulus programs.