April 15th: Annual Cheat the Middle Class Day

Have you filed your taxes yet? Did you have to hire an accountant or buy a computer program? Are you pretty sure you’re getting cheated by the tax system?

You probably are. Last year, The San Francisco Chronicle wrote an eye-opening report on taxes that revealed:

Through explicit policies, as well as tax laws never reported in the news, Congress now literally takes money from those making $30,000 to $500,000 per year and funnels it in subtle ways to the super rich -- the top 1/100th of 1 percent of Americans.

People making $60,000 paid a larger share of their 2001 income in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes than a family making $25 million, the latest Internal Revenue Service data show. And in income taxes alone, people making $400,000 paid a larger share of their incomes than the 7,000 households who made $10 million or more.

Glad to know we’re taking such good care of the Learjet and caviar crowd. For years, liberals have worked toward a progressive tax system of forced wealth-redistribution where the richest among us pay a much higher percentage of their taxes in order to support programs for the poorest among us. Conservatives abhor the Marxist-tinged theory of forced wealth-redistribution and have thus riddled the tax code with ways for the richest among us to escape paying taxes.

The result? Those of us in the middle are getting royally cheated. We pay a high percentage of our income in taxes because of progressive taxation, but get none of the significant tax breaks given to the plutocrats in their 20-bedroom mansions.

It’s time for tax reform.