Dear Editor:

Over the past several weeks, we have been bombarded by the media with the claim that 47 Percent of Americans that do not pay taxes. I sat back and gave this a significant amount of thought. I hope you do the same as you read this article.The press has painted this quote in the most negative aspect. But think about this. When you and I started to work many years ago, we were asked to the amount of tax withholding we wanted from our pay check. This was to reduce the amount of income tax we paid and to increase our take home pay.I did and so did you. The more deductions and interest, property tax and church deductions you claimed the greater your take home pay. We also had money put in a pretax 401 tax plan. Again to increase our retirement and set our tax base.Now think about this. By April the 15th when we sit down with our income tax adviser. We looked for every LOOP HOLE and I mean every LOOP HOLE we could to reduce the income tax we paid Uncle Sam. The objective was to try NOT to pay any income tax. If we calculated our deductions correctly in the start of the year we either broke even, did not have to make a payment, or we got a refund.If you tell me you didn't do this you suffer from the tax evasion syndrome. We have also read over the years where folks went to jail for not paying their taxes. Now the press is telling us the rich folks don't pay enough taxes and we middle class pay too much tax. And no political class wants to add more taxes to us middle class.Every one of us is on the slippery slope and do not want to pay more taxes than our fair share. And that puts us all in the 47 percent and we ALL do it legally. So what's the big fuss? If you don't agree with this, the next time you pay your income tax give the feds tithing of 40 percent and forget about your deductions of property tax, interest and children that you claim on yout tax forms.From the pen ofK Treger,Lehighton