in article SLsAc.43600$tA6.5774@nwrddc03.gnilink.net, Kevin Wayne Williams
at kww.nihongo@verizon.nut wrote on 6/18/04 11:50 AM:

> Ernest Schaal wrote:
> 
> 
>> Actually, there was one gem of data I gave you before, which you never
>> commented on. That gem is that the really poor pay no taxes, but receive
>> financial benefits. Thus, the ratio of benefits received to taxes paid
>> approaches infinity.
> 
> It goes negative, too. Perhaps those extra taxes that the people at the
> 98.99% range are paying are to compensate for EIC, and not Bill Gates?
> Couldn't prove it one way or the other by the sloppy argument I've seen
> to date.
> 
> And what is a "proportionate" tax decrease for a rich man if you can
> find a poor one that had his tax rate shift from +1% to -1%, anyway?
> Isn't that a 200% tax cut? Mr. Gates would have loved to get one of those.
> KWW

No Kevin,

I was talking specifically of the "ratio of benefits received to taxes
paid." Simplistically, that can be described as amount of benefits divided
by the amount of taxes paid. If the taxes paid is zero and the amount of
benefits is a finite number, then that ratio would be dividing by zero,
which means that the ratio would approach infinity.

The ratio of benefits received to taxes paid could only be negative if both
the benefits and the taxes paid are finite numbers, and one of the two
(benefits or taxes paid) is a negative about.

Although there has been proposals to have the poor pay a "negative tax"
(i.e., get a sum of money instead of paying a sum of money), to my knowledge
those proposals were never adopted.