# What do people pay in taxes? Apparently 40%

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com

Apparently most people pay about 40% in taxes, regardless of how much they make:

Most workers will pay about that much on each dollar of income when all taxes — federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, taxes for benefit programs, etc. — are considered.

As a consequence, a 30-year-old couple earning only $20,000 a year has a marginal tax rate of 42.5%, while a 45-year-old couple earning$500,000 pays at 43.2%. There are some exceptions: A 30-year-old couple earning $50,000 a year, for instance, pays 24.4%, and a 60-year-old couple making$150,000 a year faces a tax rate of 47.7%.

The average marginal tax rate on incomes between $20,000 and$500,000 is 40.3%, the median tax rate is 41.8%, and the standard deviation of all of those rates is 5.3 percentage points. Basically, most of us pay about 40%, plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.

Of course, tax rates go down for the very, very rich. See, Warren Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary.

Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned$60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent.

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