Miller Buckfire chairman Harvey Golub says President Barack Obama is "simply wrong" about the need to increase taxes for high earners.

"There is a lot wrong with our tax code and it is unfair, but the president is simply wrong if he believes our highest earners are not paying their fair share," Golub writes in The Wall Street Journal.

"The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay more in federal income taxes than the bottom 90 percent. The bottom 50 percent pay no income tax at all," says Golub, a former chairman and CEO of American Express.

Editor's Note: Startling Proof of the End of America’s Middle Class. Details in the Video

"Clearly, our tax system is highly progressive, either when considering income taxes alone or consolidating personal income, corporate, estate and payroll taxes."

The heart of the tax-code problems lies in its preferences, penalties and subsidies, says Golub, who serves on the executive committee of the American Enterprise Institute.

For example, healthcare benefits and retirement plans by corporations and governments are real income to individuals but are not considered as such, effectively lowering the recipients' tax rates. This "subsidy" is paid for by higher rates on everyone else, particularly those who pay for their healthcare and retirements on their own.

“Everyone earning the same amount of money should pay the same in federal taxes, regardless of how they earned their money and regardless of how they choose to spend it,” says Golub.

“What would be fair is all Americans paying federal taxes on all their income, whether it is earned in the form of cash or benefits, and paying taxes on earnings only once.”

According to The Heritage Foundation, Taxmageddon, a one-year $494 billion tax increase, threatens to strike the economy on Jan. 1, 2013, unless Congress and Obama act to stop it soon.

Taxmageddon includes the implementation of five of the 18 separate tax increases in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Editor's Note: Startling Proof of the End of America’s Middle Class. Details in the Video