SUE Carpenter pays about $6,100 a year in federal income taxes. But she might owe just half that amount if she had a mortgage, and nothing at all if she had minor children.
The fact that Carpenter doesn't have these deductions makes her part of a dwindling group: U.S. taxpayers. An estimated 50 million Americans won't pay any federal income tax this year. That's nearly a third of all adults, up from 18% in 1980.
To many, the shrinking tax base is not a big deal. Most of the people who don't owe Uncle Sam are of modest means. They don't pay because Congress approved tax credits aimed at helping working families and sought to encourage homeownership by making mortgage interest deductible.
But then there are people like Carpenter. She's not rich, making about $58,000 a year working at the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Commerce. She rents a small apartment in Los Angeles for $1,100 a month, so she doesn't have a mortgage she can use for a deduction.
"I don't think it's fair," said Carpenter, 61. "But we thrifty people don't get much sympathy."
Few would begrudge tax breaks for those who struggle to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads. But at the same time, some fear that the tax-free zone has grown too big and that too many working Americans no longer have a stake in the tax system or efforts to improve it.
"Many people would think if you are a citizen, you ought to have skin in the game, and we have more and more people with no skin in the game," said Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan, conservative-leaning research group. "From a social perspective, we ought to be concerned about that."
Still, no one expects a big change in the underlying trend, especially because tax breaks are one of the few things that Republicans and Democrats both embrace.
Consider the earned income tax credit for low-income workers, which in some cases allows people to be paid more in "refunds" than they actually paid in taxes.
Republicans like it because it's a tax cut, not a spending program, and it rewards work. But Democrats like it too because the credit provides more than $30 billion in relief to low-income families.
To be sure, it helps take millions of wage earners off the tax rolls. But a House Democrat was quick to point out that low-income Americans already shoulder a heavy load of taxes -- payroll, sales, excise and others.
