The price of a lottery ticket consists of two components, the production cost of the ticket and an excise tax. This tax is an approximately constant proportion of ticket price and is fully shifted to the consumer. Hence the ratio of tax to income is a multiple of the expenditures-income ratio....

The social security tax is levied on wages and salaries up to a maximum annual amount, with employee and employer each paying the same amount of tax on the employee’s behalf. Workers earning more than the annual maximum taxable earnings and having more than one employer are vulnerable to...