Was Romney Right About the 47%?

Do you remember when Romney said that 47% of American pay no income tax?   Well, yes and no.  In 2010, according to this video, 47% of American paid no federal income taxes, but paid other taxes like payroll tax (which most see as a tax) FICA and state and local taxes.  But having said that Romney probably wouldn't have wanted his audience to see this entire video, but you might want your students to see it as it starts by looking at what taxes are used for and then goes into all the different ways to people are paying taxes.  I learned, for example, that most people pay more in FICA than federal income taxes.  The video also talks about how people get out of paying taxes.

I learned about this video from a WashingtonPost article on Gene Simmons who recently stated that 1% of the population created all of the jobs in the US.