The Few. The Proud. The Taxpayers.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg let the cat out of the bag when he announced that half the city’s income comes from 42,000 of its residents. So in a city of 8.2 million, less than half of one percent of the people carry 50 percent of the tax burden.

On the national scale, the top 10% of income tax filers pay 70% of the taxes and earned 47% of the income.

The Tax Foundation reports that the top 1% of American tax filers paid more taxes in 2006 than the bottom 90%. The numbers were $408-billion paid compared to $299-billion. Of 136 million returns filed that year, a mere 1.4 million Americans paid more than this other 122 million combined.

And 23-million Americans who paid zero in income taxes still received federal “refunds” of $46 billion last year.

Is this what passes for fairness today? Is this why some have Tea Parties to protest, while millions don’t care because they are paying nothing?

Read more here.