death and taxes

Nine of Ten Most Taxed U.S. Neighborhoods Are in NYC Metro Area

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 15: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at a news conference at City Hall to discuss the removal of Occupy Wall Street protesters early today from Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. Hundreds of protesters, who rallied against inequality in America, have slept in tents and under tarps since September 17 in Zuccotti Park, which has become the epicenter of the global Occupy Wall Street movement. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Rich. Photo: Spencer Platt/2011 Getty Images

Nine neighborhoods around Manhattan and Connecticut were among the ten most heavily taxed areas in the U.S., according to the most recent IRS data available. “We’re subsidizing the slackers in the rest of the country,” an NYU professor explained. An Occupy Wall Streeter countered that argument by saying the local share of taxes paid “is irrelevant and a distortion of the fact that as a percentage, wealthy people pay far less as a portion of their earnings.” The local 1 percenters paid 1.6 percent of all individual income taxes in 2008, or eight times their proportional population share.

NYC Has Most Taxed Neighborhoods