If you are really poor, you don't pay any taxes. If you are a working schlub, the more you make, the more you pay in taxes. If you are very wealthy, however, you get to enjoy a 15% tax rate on your income.
Yes, you read that correctly. The wealthy elite in this country pay 15% on their income. That is the same rate that people who earn less than $30,000 / year pay and probably a small fraction of the rate you pay. (unless you too are super wealthy)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/opinion/07tues1.html?ex=1118808000&en=45eba49d1eea49c7&ei=5070
David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of earners more than doubled. The share of the bottom 90 percent declined.
President Bush did not create the income gap. But the unheralded effect of his tax policy is its unequal impact on the modestly well to do. By 2015, those making between $80,000 and $400,000 will pay as much as 13.9 percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $400,000, assuming the tax cuts are made permanent.