While there are a handful of BS rules like the carried interest loophole, the problem is not the top 1% not paying their fair share. It's the bottom 99%, especially the bottom 50% not paying their fair share while expecting free shit they didn't work for.

Did you know welfare programs excluding social security and Medicare is 50% of all federal income tax? This means I literally paid $25k last year for other people not to work and get free shit and I'm not even in the top 10%. The top 1% pays 100k each on average towards welfare."

ah yes, the classic "rich people pay all the taxes" talking point. We get this one every single day. It’s the go-to defense for anyone looking to justify a system rigged in favor of billionaires while working people scrape by. So let’s walk through this fantasy and add a little reality.

First off, yes, the rich technically pay a large share of federal income taxes. That’s because they control an even larger share of the nation’s wealth. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the entire middle class combined. In 1989, the top 1 percent held around 23 percent of the country’s wealth. Today, it’s over 31 percent and climbing. So when people say they pay the most in taxes, what they’re really saying is they’ve hoarded the most wealth and managed to keep a big enough slice of the pie that even minimal taxation generates a high total number.

But that’s only one piece of the story. Federal income tax is just one form of tax. Working-class Americans pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, car registration taxes, property taxes, phone and utility taxes, and dozens more. These taxes hit poor and middle-income people the hardest because they take up a much bigger chunk of their paychecks. That’s why studies from groups like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show that in many states the poorest 20 percent of residents pay a higher percentage of their income in state and local taxes than the richest 1 percent do.

Meanwhile, the rich use every tool in the book to avoid paying taxes. Capital gains, which are the main way rich people make money, are taxed at lower rates than wages. They also stash money in tax shelters, take advantage of trusts, defer income through stock options, and borrow against assets to avoid realizing taxable gains. In 2021, ProPublica published leaked IRS data showing that some billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk paid zero in federal income tax in certain years. You and your neighbors paid more in taxes than the richest people in the world. Let that sink in.

And if that weren’t enough, corporate tax avoidance is another layer of this scam. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent with the promise that the savings would trickle down to workers. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Companies used those savings to buy back stock, pump executive pay, and continue offshoring jobs. Meanwhile, working people were left with wage stagnation, record inflation, and housing costs through the roof.

When America was at its most economically productive in the 1950s and 60s, the top marginal tax rate for the rich was over 90 percent. We had strong unions, rising wages, and booming infrastructure. The rich paid more into the system and the country thrived. That model was abandoned during the Reagan era, and what we’ve seen since is exactly what you’d expect when the wealthiest people rewrite the rules to benefit themselves. Rising inequality, flat wages, and a crumbling middle class.

So no, saying “the rich pay the most in taxes” is not the mic drop you think it is. It is a talking point fed to the public by the ultra-wealthy to make sure no one looks too hard at the loopholes, the shelters, and the ways they’ve gamed the system. They’ve benefited the most from our economy. They use the roads, the infrastructure, the courts, the labor, and the consumer base built and maintained by working people. The very least they can do is pay their fair share.

NOTE: This is a boilerplate response to whatever simp statement you left about the rich paying taxes that gets posted here ad nauseam.