Final answer:
The percentage of a wealthy family's annual income paid in sales tax cannot be determined without knowing how much they spend on taxable goods. A hypothetical calculation shows that if they earn $1 million and spend $100,000 on taxable goods with an 8% tax, they pay 0.8% of their income in sales tax.
Step-by-step explanation:
If the sales tax is 8 percent, the percentage of the wealthy family's annual income paid in sales tax cannot be directly calculated without additional information about how much of their income is spent on taxable goods and services. To determine the percentage of income paid as sales tax, we would need to know the total amount the family spends on goods and services subject to sales tax over the year, and then divide the total sales tax paid by their total annual income.
As a hypothetical example, if the family earns $1,000,000 a year and spends $100,000 on taxable items, with an 8% sales tax, they would pay $8,000 in sales tax. To find the percent of income paid in sales tax, we would calculate 8,000 ÷ 1,000,000 = 0.008, which is 0.8%. Thus, in this example, they would pay 0.8% of their annual income in sales tax.