The Rich are Different

They don't pay taxes. Or at least they pay a lot less on their income than you do. Take for instance Ronald S. Lauder, whose net worth is estimated at more than $3.1 billion. Using a "labyrinth of trusts, limited liability corporations and holding companies," when he inherited his billions from his mother Estee, he paid "an effective rate of 16 percent — about a third of the top estate tax rate at the time."

As Sen Tom Coburn said, “This welfare for the well-off — costing billions of dollars a year — is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate, many who are working two jobs just to make ends meet, and i.o.u.’s to be paid off by future generations.” And generally, "The tax burden on the nation’s superelite has steadily declined in recent decades, according to a sliver of data released annually by the I.R.S. The effective federal income tax rate for the 400 wealthiest taxpayers, representing the top 0.000258 percent, fell from about 30 percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 2008, the most recent data available."

Also, they're the one's who cashed in on the deratives scam that melted our economy.

“There’s real truth to the idea that the tax code for the 1 percent is different from the tax code for the 99 percent,” said Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado. “Any taxpayer lucky enough to have appreciated property is usually put to a choice: cash out and pay some tax, or hold the property and risk the vagaries of the market. Only the truly rich can use derivatives to get the best of both worlds — lots of cash and very little risk.”

Sure they make a lot of charitable donations, but you and I are effectively paying for those because we pay our full share of taxes and they just don't.