Middle class taxpayer revolts over state tax

Why do I pay only $474 in Virginia income tax?

The trouble is that the decision-makers in Richmond, particularly the Republicans, coddle the well-to-do and threaten to starve state services to levels seen only in the Third World.

Virginia's tax system, with a marginal tax of only 5.75 percent on income over $17,000, and no tax on estates, is rigged for the rich and against the middle class.

I am an 81-year-old Arlington resident who has just completed his Virginia tax return and finds it unfair that younger Virginians pay eight times as much as I do.

Virginia is overlooking the foolishly generous income tax break it gives its affluent elderly. My wife and I had a federal adjusted gross income of $92,000, but our state income tax bill came to only $474, about one-half of 1 percent, compared with the $7,529 we paid to the feds.

With a total income of almost $100,000 a year, we pay all of $1.30 a day in state income taxes. But a 40-year-old couple with my income would pay the state $3,716 in taxes, about eight times what my wife and I pay.

If guambats had hands instead of paws, Guambat would like to shake that man's hand.