Chart of the Day: Do the Rich Really Pay Less in Taxes?   Last
month, billionaire investor Warren Buffett complained that he
didn't pay enough taxes. President Obama responded by proposing
the "Buffett Rule." He wants to put a tax rate floor on
Americans who earn more than one million dollars. "Warren
Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren
Buffett," said the President. Of course, this assumes that
Buffett is the rule and not the exception. What are the
effective tax rates for different income groups? Do the wealthy
really pay taxes at a relatively lower rate?  We can answer this
question easily enough by looking at the numbers. Here's a chart
I constructed from IRS data from 2009. It shows the average
effective tax rate for various income ranges, which is easily
derived by dividing the amount of taxes paid by each group by
the adjusted gross income they earned:*  effective tax rates by
income group 2009.png  This is a pretty interesting chart for a
few reasons. For starters, it dismis