Heavy Burden of Social Taxes on the Poor

Under the new provision for the tax code, a man who is paid $1 million a year will pay no more than 38% of his income in federal taxes. His Social Security taxes are about one-fourth of 1% of his gross income.

The man who earns $43,000 a year will also pay no more than 38% of his gross in federal taxes. His Social Security taxes are about 6% of his gross.

The person who works for $3.35 an hour and earns less than $7,000 a year pays 7% of his entire gross in Social Security taxes, and peole like ourselves pay no Social Security tax on our retirement income, and there is no Social Security tax on interest from savings, earnings from investments, etc.

There is no way President Reagan can have fair tax reform without taking into consideration that the best paid people in the country are the least affected by Social ecurity taxes, and the poorest paid people (who probably rent and file non-itemized forms) are the most severely afflicted by Social Security taxes.

I suggest two federal taxes, one for income on which Social Security taxes are paid, and a different federal income tax for earnings that do ot pay Social Security taxes.

As far as I’m concerned a young person working for $15,000 a year, paying rent and $1,000 a year in Social Security taxes shouldn’t have to pay any income taxes.

We can not continue to ignore the heavy burden of Social Security taxes on low-income people and pretend to care about fairness in taxes.

ELIZABETH ECKELS Diamond Bar