Bruce Bartlett has some interesting notes on taxation:

Just in time for tax-filing season, the Tax Foundation and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation have compiled some useful facts about the federal tax system. Following are a few worth thinking about as taxpayers write their annual checks to Uncle Sam.

* Contrary to popular belief, the vast bulk of federal taxes are paid by the wealthy. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, in 2006, 53.7 percent of all federal income taxes were paid by those with incomes over $200,000. Those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 28.3 percent of all individual income taxes. Thus those with incomes over $100,000 paid 82 percent of the total. They also paid 44.4 percent of all payroll taxes.

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* Almost all taxpayers think that the top federal income-tax rate of 35 percent is too high. More than 90 percent of taxpayers believe that the top rate should be no higher than 29 percent, with 70 percent saying that 19 percent should be the maximum.

* The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is a rapidly growing federal tax. Originally designed to tax only the rich, increasingly it is a tax on the middle class. In 2005, the AMT affected only 1.3 percent of those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000. Unless Congress acts, this will rise to 42.8 percent this year and over 50 percent next year. This illustrates the problem with all soak-the-rich tax proposals — eventually, they end up taxing the middle class, too.

For years, Republicans have largely ignored the problem of the AMT — enacting temporary patches to the tax cut to keep the problem from getting worse, but not even attempting to offer a permanent fix. The latest patch expired at the end of last year, which is why there is such a sharp rise projected in the percentage of taxpayers affected by the AMT.

Consequently, Democrats really have a gun to their heads — they must do something on the AMT by the end of the year. But because they have pledged to pay for all tax cuts, they must raise taxes somehow to pay for an AMT fix. Republicans aren't likely to offer much help in that area, making tax policy in 2007 an interesting spectator sport.