US Income Taxes and Moral Hazard?
Should we implement a 5% minimum tax for everyone filing a return to make sure that all voters have a truly vested interest in what we do with our tax revenue (i.e. some skin in the game)? Look at this data from the IRS - Summary of Federal Income Tax Data, 2009.
The top 1% by AGI pays 36.7% of all income tax, at an avg tax rate of 24.01%.
The lower 50% group by AGI pays 2.3%, at avg tax rate of 1.85%.
Moral hazard is defined, at least as far as taxation is concerned, as the tendency to take undue risks because the costs are not borne by the party taking the risk. In other words, if you are not paying taxes, you see nothing wrong with raising taxes on others. (Note: SocSec & Medicare taxes are deferred benefits, not taxes for annual operating expenses.)