Fair Taxes? Depends What You Mean by ‘Fair’

At a recent fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett said that rich guys like him weren’t paying enough. Mr. Buffett was echoing a refrain that is popular in some circles. Last year, Robert B. Reich, labor secretary during the Clinton administration, wrote on his blog that “middle-income workers are now paying a larger share of their incomes than people at or near the top.”

These claims are enough to get populist juices flowing. The problem with them is that they don’t hold up under close examination.

The best source for objective data on the distribution of the tax burden is the Congressional Budget Office. The C.B.O. goes beyond anecdotes and bald assertions to provide hard data on who pays taxes. One can argue about the details of its methods, but there is no doubt that it is nonpartisan and that its tax analysts are some of the best in the business, and its numbers are so clear you'd think even politicians could get them right…

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/business/yourmoney/15view.html?ex=1342152000&en=0a71a061312a8cbf&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink