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Sorry America, Your Taxes Aren't High (bloomberg.com)
Americans generally feel they're being over-taxed, especially around this time of the year. But is that really true? An article on Bloomberg investigates: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development analyzed how 35 countries tax wage-earners, making it possible to compare tax burdens across the world's biggest economies. Each year, the OECD measures what it calls the "tax wedge," the gap between what a worker gets paid and what they actually spend or save. Included are income taxes, payroll taxes, and any tax credits or rebates that supplement worker income. Excluded are the countless other ways that governments levy taxes, such as sales and value-added taxes, property taxes, and taxes on investment income and gains. Guess who came out at the top of the list? No. Not the U.S. At the top are Belgium and France, while workers in Chile and New Zealand are taxed the least. America is in the bottom third.
It's the fact that the rich pay less (in terms of % income) than the middle class.
That's because earned income (wages) get taxed at a higher rate than investment income (rental properties, capital gains and dividends). Romney paid less in taxes because the majority of his income was investment. Obama paid more in taxes because the majority of his income was earned. Don't like the taxes you're paying? Convert earned income into investment income.
What Romney and others got crucified for was confusing "no INCOME tax" with "no taxes at all whatsoever," as if income taxes were the only taxes in the USA. They are not, as there are a number of other federal and state taxes, as the poster you replied to noted.
Moreover, they were derided because they were deliberately trying to mislead voters through implication, without technically lying. It's similar to when Apple had ads that stated "Macs are immune to Windows malware", knowing that most consumers will hear that and think "Macs are immune to malware", despite that not being what Apple's literal statement said (because "Windows malware" only affects Windows, just like "Android malware" would only affect Android devices, not Windows or iOS or OS X, etc).
Dividends get taxed as income.
Ordinary dividends are taxed as income. Qualified dividends are taxed at different rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_tax#United_States
All my dividend income is qualified and therefore I paid zero taxes, as my actual tax rate is under 15%.
Your reasoning falls down at the "write your congress critters" part.
You should realize that your congress critters work for rich people and corporations and are bribed by them to keep their taxes low and put special loopholes in the law so they don't have to pay taxes. Congress doesn't work for voters.
If you're just a regular working stiff and not a corporation or rich person, you are paying too much tax.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?