Lost your job, your house, your dignity.

There is good news.

According to Forbes, the IRS has released this data on the top 400 wealthiest earner of America.

The 400 highest-earning taxpayers in the U.S. reported a record $105 billion in total adjusted gross income in 2006, but they paid just $18 billion in tax, new Internal Revenue Service figures show. That works out to an average federal income tax bite of 17%–the lowest rate paid by the richest 400 during the 15-year period covered by the IRS statistics. The average federal tax bite on the top 400 was 30% in 1995 and 23% in 2002.

The difference between now and the Clinton years, was $13 billion of potential uncollected taxes. The difference between now and the year after 9/11, was $6.3 billion of potential uncollected taxes.

Obviously those top 400 will use any media event to tout the benefit of cutting taxes…

After seeing how much they made… who can blame them… As for the rest of us, we see that uncollected money as being 260,000 new jobs at $50,000 a piece …”that could’a been….”

Taxing them at 92%, which was historically our highest rate ever, gives us a difference of $79 billion, or by the formula above, or 1.58 million jobs. Now can you see how high taxes shift the economy into overdrive?

Of course those top 400 wealthiest, and their bankrolled Wall Street Journal will never let on to that…

Again, who can blame them.

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