Last fall, we began to hear the drum­beat of “half of all Amer­i­cans pay no taxes”. Specif­i­cally, it was that they pay no fed­eral income taxes, though that detail was often lost in the rhetoric. The topic became a hot one among the Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates start­ing in mid-​​August, 2011.

With Tax Day nearly upon us, it seems worth­while to inves­ti­gate this topic in more depth.

Since this is a meme watch arti­cle, let’s start by look­ing at what was going on at that time that would trig­ger the meme’s for­ma­tion. (more…)