And they use the same roads, schools, emergency services etc as the rest of us.
Except you are jumping right from $50K to $500K and ignoring everything in between . . . Just like that shitty misleading graph. Someone making $100-150K/year on the coast is not exactly rich either. Which is why the graph conveniently left that out, because if they included that it would show how just much those in the $100-200Kish range get hammered- which is a far higher percent of their income than the bottom 80%. Which is basically the range you need to be in just to be house poor at todays prices with a family of 4.
Beyond that, the reason why the math works that way is they are comparing a state with income tax to one that doesn't. The potential for income taxes is almost infinite, however property taxes on even the most luxurious homes will only be so much. Plus the poor spend a higher % of their money on sales tax, whereas the 1% don't spend all that much more on taxable goods compared to the upper 1.1-20%. It's not apples to apples, especially when you leave out 19% of the tax base for both states.
