Mitt may be right that 47% of all people pay no income taxes, but he's wrong to suggest they pay no taxes. There's sales taxes, excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco and property taxes, or higher rent payments to cover the landlord's property taxes. There's state and local income taxes, which don't have all of the deductions and credits that apply to Federal income taxes. It's hard to figure out the exact amount of other taxes paid by everyone from these other taxes.
But there's one tax that's easy to calculate, the FICA withholding that pays for Social Security. It has been 15.3% for all employees since 1990. If you are on a salary, like me, you pay half, and your employee pays half. If you work independently, like my wife, you pay the full 15.3%. There's a temporary cut of 2%, which will end at the end of the year. As my (Democratic) boss points out, I really pay the full 15.3%, because if he didn't have to pay his share of FCA, I'd get it as pay instead. My boss also wants single-payer so that we don't have to pay outrageous insurance premiums and he could raise our pay by the insurance costs, but that's another diary
However, these tax rates apply only to the firts $110,000 or so of taxable income. If you have a much higher taxable income, like Mitt's $25 million, your FICA rate drops to near zero.
Now, since Mitt paid less than 14% of his income in 2010, and who knows how much less than that in previous years, there's only one conclusion
Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rates than many of those " entitled victims that don't take control of their lives" he complains about.