What, if anything, should be the “fair share” paid by those presently paying no federal income taxes?

Flat rate, a C-note per household. Call it the Non-Alternative Minimum Tax. Use it to start paying down some debt. Warren Buffett can sweeten the pot.

That way, everybody's got skin in the game, and those of us in that top 25% no longer think of those (former) non-payers as useless parasites.

So add it to the income tax:

"Regardless of deductions or marginal rates no one reporting any gross income shall incur a tax liability less than $100 or 100% of gross income, which ever is less."

"A single C-note (or however much) is a capitation tax."

No it's not. We already have an Alternative Minimum Tax, do we not?

Michael used the words "per household", which of course is the same language that the IRS uses in its filing criteria.

If we can have an alternative minimum tax to ensure that "rich people" pay their fair share (and we do), then we can extend that alternative minimum tax to ensure that everyone pays their fair share.

If you don't have any income, then you don't file and if you don't file, then you don't pay the AMT, thus their is no capitation tax.

It's one thing for the President to say to America's wealthiest citizens, "The country is in a mess, we need more revenue fast and you folks are in the best position to provide it, at least temporarily." But instead, the President says "The country is in a mess because American's wealthiest citizens haven't been paying their fair share and they need to step up to the plate and do that." The message he's sending is misleading - as it's intended to be - and obviously politically motivated, which is why many Americans are reacting negatively to it. It's difficult to trust a President that intentionally lies to you.

Except the president has yet to propose a plan that actually cuts spending.

A plan that says people get a smaller increase than they were counting on, is not sacrifice.

Well said. I've often thought that those of us on the Right would do well to more forthrightly make fairness-based arguments against graduated income taxes, both because it's a discussion we can't avoid, and because I think it can be turned to our advantage. Leftist intellectuals don't mind arguing openly for need-based redistribution, but ordinary people, although they may have a vague idea that "the rich should pay more", also seem to have the idea that the rich currently pay very little. Moreover, in my experience, you can back-foot most of them by challenging graduated income taxes on fairness grounds, because most ordinary people still find the argument for naked, need-based redistribution embarassing. It smacks of theft, of undeserved benefit, of parasitism. This embarassment, shame, and defensiveness is something we should be exploiting and fanning, to try to morally delegitimize graduated income taxes in the same way that "redistribution" has become a bad word for a large segment of the electorate.

Pragmatic arguments about small businesses and job creation are fine too, but we shouldn't shrink from the moral dimension. (It's particularly fun to argue to a leftist that the fairest form of taxation is a head tax.)

@Mikeeeee: For most people payroll taxes are not regressive.

Consider that the Medicare portion is taxed on all earned income at a flat rate and the top for Social Security is $106,800.

By the numbers above that means people will into the top 25% are not maxing out Social Security and all earned income is taxed for Medicare.

Plus, the EIC was specifically designed to offset payroll taxes. The result is a refundable credit (ie negative income tax) to offset payroll taxes while allowing those individuals to make a claim at end of life for the benefits.

Thus, nearly all taxpayers are paying the same rate for payroll taxes but half of taxpayers are then exempted from income taxes. Given the US has the most regressive income tax in the OECD the fact that only very high earned incomes partially escape SS taxes and only unearned income escapes both SS and Medicare do make payroll taxes largely irrelevant in terms of federal individual taxes.

The feds have no other significant individual tax source.

So yes, I do think this way and given in the past three years I have gone from being someone whose payroll taxes were higher than his income taxes to being in that top 25% I don't think it is an unreasonable way to think. Especially given the direct connection between a benefit and taxes in terms of payroll taxes and the fact those benefits are mildly progressive.

To nitpick, the Medicare payroll tax is flat, not regressive.

More substantially, in analyzing both payroll taxes I think you need to take the expected benefits into account, and those benefits are highly progressive. The expected benefit for Medicare is the same for everyone, so the 'return' on taxes paid is inversely related to income.

A little more complicated for Social Security, but here's the benefit formula:

External Link 

As you can see in the example presented the individual with the lower income received a benefit equal to 45% of his monthly salary, while for the higher income the figure was 30%. For the first $749 of income, the percentage is 90.

Of course, all this assumes the benefits will be there, which is another story.

I have another question.

"Mr. President, what sort of a message does it send to the American people when, during a time of high unemployment and general economic distress, you will personally be spending more on a week's vacation at Martha's Vinyard than most Americans earn in an entire year?"