Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Do the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes?
Do the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes?
Jan 16, 2026 9:56 AM

During her presidential campaign, Sec. Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said she’d implement a tax system in which the wealthy “pay their fair share in taxes.” Expecting the rich to pay what is “fair” is not asking to much of them. But one question that is rarely considered is, “What if they already do pay their fair share?”

Before we can determine whether the rich pay enough we have to first ask what would be “fair.” How much of total tax revenues should, say, the top one percent of households pay? Five percent? 10 percent? 20 percent?

According to new IRS statistics from 2014 tax returns, the top one percent of households paid almost 40 percent of all e taxes collected by the federal government.

In 2014, 139,562,034 filed an e tax return, putting just under 1.4 million people into the category of “one percenters.” They earned 20.58 percent of all e and paid 39.48 percent of the taxes. The average adjusted gross e (AGI) for the group was $465,626 (the “poorest” people in the group had an AGI of $257,110).

This chart by the Wall Street Journal’s Richard Rubinhighlights that the top 25 percent (avg. AGI: $77, 714) paid nearly 86.78 percent of all e taxes.

As Rubin says, “So when we talk about the individual e tax, we’re mostly talking about how we tax e households, because that’s where the bulk of the e is and where the tax revenue is.”

It makes sense that e households would pay more in e taxes since, to paraphrase the bank robber Willie Sutton, “that’s where the money is.” Yet there is more to consider in assessing tax fairness than merely whether e earners are paying enough.

As Abraham Kuyper famously said, “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” This is important consideration for Christians to keep in mind when we think about money, especially when we think about how to “redistribute” the e of our neighbor. Their e—like our es from and is owned by God. How it should be spent is ultimately the Lord’s prerogative. We don’t have free reign to write a check to the IRS from our neighbor’s bank account.

This does not mean, of course, that we shouldn’t expect those who have been blessed financially to help share the burden of funding our government. What it does mean, though, is that when we think about at what level of funding we need to perform proper government functions we must not assume that merely because our neighbors have high earnings we are justified in taking from them whatever we want.

When we think about what constitutes a fair system of taxation we must not only ask whether the wealthy are paying their “fair share” but also whether our system is fair to those to whom God has given much.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Christian anthropology begins with you! Three texts for meditation
While seeing is believing, being is best. Being who you are is a lifetime’s work. This has been in the forefront of my mind this past month, as each week I’ve been turning out reading lists on natural law, how to think like an economist, and how to think and talk about politics. I’ve been thinking about seeing, believing, and being, because this week I want to suggest some readings on Christian anthropology. On other topics, I’ve tried to suggest...
End the BBC’s monopoly status
The UK’s exit from the European Union opened a new era of liberty by empowering the British people to control their own destiny. However, state monopolies undermine their newfound autonomy by removing them from key decisions that affect their lives. One of the foremost UK monopolies that has eroded consumer sovereignty is the BBC, argues Rev. Richard Turnbull in a new essay for the Acton Institute’sReligion & Liberty Transatlanticwebsite. Rev. Turnbull – who is both ordained in the Church of...
Thousands gather in Venezuela to protest Nicolás Maduro’s government
With coronavirus understandably being the focus of most people’s thoughts these days, it’s not surprising that other important events might escape our attention. Consider, for example, the fact that tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets on March 10 this week in their nation’s capital, Caracas, as well as other cities to demand an end to the Chavista dictatorship of President Nicolás Maduro which has driven the country into an economic black hole from which it shows no...
The post-liberal Right: The good, the bad, and the perplexing
This article first appeared on March 2, 2020, in Public Discourse, the journal of the Witherspoon Institute, and was republished with permission. Since 2016, much of the American Right has been preoccupied with the liberalism wars. Whether they question aspects of the American Founding, express strong doubts about free markets or press for more assertive roles for the state, post-liberals believe that the ideas variously called “classical liberalism,” “modern conservatism,” or simply “liberalism” have exercised too strong a hold on...
Dashed hopes in crisis? Be like Charles Borromeo
When the Israelites wondered aimlessly in the desert, often they got lost, were scared and worshiped false idols to abate their worries. They abandoned Yahweh, but the Lord did not reciprocate. Rather, he stood steadfastly by his chosen people, and demanded they walk straight, heads up and remain focused, trusting pletely, for soon would reach the coveted Promised Land. The Old Testament Covenant provided God’s chosen people with the gift of theological hope which the Israelite nation collectively relied on...
How the Church can respond to the Coronavirus pandemic
If you had you asked someone on New Year’s Day of 2020 what they envisioned the year ahead might look like, few would’ve imagined that the first few months would be spent canceling trips, events, and academic semesters. Families and college students hadn’t planned to spend their spring break in quarantine. Most businesses didn’t enter the year in fear of stomach-turning Dow Jones plummets and sobering market uncertainty. Regardless of projections, governments across the world are taking extensive measures to...
By God’s Grace we will win the COVID-19 race
In this global crisis, mankind will find medical weapons to slay the COVID-19 dragon and stave off a massive loss of lives and global economic collapse. However, this means allowing enough operating space for God, through His Grace, by remaining diligently prayerful while also zealous and creative in our scientific research. Read More… “By God’s Grace we will win the race.” I love this optimistic expression used by some of my African priest friends in Rome. It is true that...
Cleveland church must stop helping the poor or stop being a church: City govt
After being thrown out of a Cleveland church that doubles as a homeless shelter, a vagrant used a pistol to force his way back inside. Unfortunately, the gun-wielding intruder wasn’t the biggest threat to the facility’s survival: Its own government was. The Denison Avenue United Church of Christ began sheltering the homeless last fall, after joining forces with the Metanoia Project, a local nonprofit. When St. Malachi Catholic Church had to reduce the number of people it housed, Denison UCC...
The Midwest’s growing ‘faith-and-tech movement’
We have long heard about the incessant flow of America’s best-and-brightest workers to the country’s largest urban centers, leading many to fear the consolidated power of “coastal elites” and the continuous disruption of the American heartland. Yet this movement seems to be slowing, as more workers and businesses shift to mid-sized metropolitan areas across the Midwest. Many venture capital firms are following suit, eyeing various eback cities” as frontiers for new growth. Given the many demographic and cultural differences between...
Why culture matters for the economy
This article first appeared on February 24, 2020, in Law & Liberty, a project of Liberty Fund, Inc., and was republished with permission. In many peoples’ minds, economics and economists remain locked in a world of homo economicus—the ultimate pleasure-calculator who seeks only to maximize personal satisfaction from the consumption of goods and services and whose occasional displays of seemingly altruistic behavior really only function as a means of self-satisfaction. This conception of economics is far removed from how modern...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved