It's true -- individual taxpayers pay more and more of the State's bills. Regular folks paid 41% of all federal income taxes in 1967 compared to 43% in 1994. For the Fiscal Year 2000, Feds anticipate $1.837 trillion will be collected. To give you a measuring stick, the U.S. nuclear arsenal alone costs us $35 billion a year. Individuals' income taxes will make up 49% of this amount. The second largest revenue sources -- social insurance taxes such as Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment and Retirement taxes -- have rocketed from 22% in 1967 to 37% in 1994.

The amount individuals pay in taxes has been rising quickly, more so than our incomes! This is because people are moving into higher tax brackets. That's right, people are spending more of their money on taxes. On average, Americans pay one-third of their income in taxes while the highest tax bracket is 39.6%. Is that outrageous? It depends on how you look at it. The highest tax brackets in other countries are more than double what ours is. With a wider range of tax brackets, people like Bill Gates might actually pay a fair share instead of everyday people holding up the country more than the soon-to-fall Microsoft emperor. The average personal income tax of the richest 1% of US families has dropped about 3% since 1977. For the other 99% of the country, tax rates have hardly changed. The earned income credit has brought more tax relief to the poorest Americans, but not changed substantially their economic status.

Social insurance taxes such as Medicare and Social Security account for slightly more than a third (34.4%) of the Federal revenues, whereas levies on corporate taxes cough up just 10%. The remaining amount comes from a medley of taxes -- excise (taxes federal and state governments put on specific items like gasoline and tobacco), customs/duties, estate, gift and other miscellaneous taxes.

Corporate welfare or corporate thievery?

Corporate tax responsibility has been put on the ZONE diet and shrunk by over 50%. In 1967, corporations paid 23% of the total US Federal revenues, compared to an anemic 11% in 1994. Government records show that overall last year corporations' tax responsibility dropped 2.5% while individuals' income tax revenue increased by 6.2%.

Corporations pay 35¢ per $1.00 as a tax rate. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reports that compared to 1990, corporate profits were 252% higher in 1997, but taxes rose only 191%. Why?? Since 1991, corporations report less of their profits as taxable income to the IRS. (That's not necessarily illegal.) But tax shelters abused by companies cost the government at least $10 billion each year. The net result is that corporations paid $60 billion less than they would have if they were paying 1990 tax rates. Comparatively, individual taxpayers paid $80 billion more. Now that is outrageous.

Where does it go?

Here's a snapshot of where the government put the most and least amount of Federal tax revenue over time. Think of this as how much these programs received from each tax dollar collected.

Farewell, but not good-bye.

On a personal note, I am saying ciao for now to MASH. Because of big changes in my life I will be giving my social conscience a rest (and engaging in a whole lot of hedonism)! As soon as I can, I'll be back with more social stuff. I encourage you to submit your social conscience to MASH magazine and the world at largeÉ.

--Cristina Booker