Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Taxes should be relative to wealth

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In Michael O. Kreps’ letter to the editor Saturday, “Raising taxes on anyone isn’t fair,” he complains that raising taxes on anyone, especially the wealthy, is not fair.

We learned from Mitt Romney that the wealthy pay a tax rate of approximately 14 percent and corporations pay an average tax rate of 13 percent, while the average American worker typically pays a much higher tax rate.

The top 20 percent of the taxpayers have around 93 percent of all the wealth and 85 percent of all assets in the country, yet the wealthy are paying a lower tax rate than the average worker.

Based on what the wealthy have in assets, they should be paying a tax rate of about 70 percent. I think that’s equitable.

His second argument is that he believes that raising taxes on the wealthy will not eliminate the deficit, so why bother?

He further states that the government spends too much money on the poor, unemployed, the disabled and elderly and in general, contributing to the common good.

What an unfortunate way to look at the nation’s current situation.

Before President Ronald Reagan, when the top tax rate was 70 percent, the wealthy were still wealthy, the percentage of poor, unemployed and elderly was lower and things were better for everyone, even the wealthy.

The wealthy created the rules, bought the government and still say it’s not fair. Greed is not the solution.

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