Before there was a French revolution, the monarchy of France was divided into three basic Estates. The First Estate was the clergy, which not only owned a significant amount of land, but paid no taxes on their income or their land, but instead collected taxes from their constituents so as to maintain their status as well as to pass onto the monarchy these taxes as a form of tribute. The Second Estate were the nobility, which also owned a significant amount of land, and in an era in which wealth came from the land, owned the hunting and fishing rights of their land, as well as the agricultural resources, so those that worked such land, or had need of such land in order to hunt or fish, paid a fee, or were taxed, or paid a percentage of their produce to these nobles, for the privilege of using their lands. Everyone else in France, not part of the monarchy, or the First or Second Estate, made up the Third Estate. The Third Estate, was essentially the commoners, which made up the vast majority of the population, who essentially subsidized the first two Estates as well as the Monarchy, as they were the ones that paid the taxes needed for the regime, provided the soldiers for the regime, paid fees to the regime, and owned, if they were fortunate, small tracts of land, and were virtually never upwardly mobile, so that becoming members of the first two Estates was typically a forlorn hope.
In today's America, each year, we devolve further and further into Three Estates. The order of such in America, is different than was France, in the sense that the First Estate, are not nobles, but the business owners of our largest mega-corporations, in which, such corporations, through the corruption of our tax laws, pay corporate taxes at such a low rate, for instance, as reported by cnn.com, Apple paid in 2014 in the European Union "… a tax rate of just 0.005%.." In addition, the highest executives in these massive corporations, prefer their compensation not in paid salary but in stock options, so that they can postpone the tax man till such time as it is most favorable for them, which precludes them from being taxed at the ordinary income rates which are considerably higher, but instead are taxed, at the much lower capital gain rates, or possibly even escaping taxes, depending upon the moves and maneuvers available to them.
The Second Estate in America, is our religious organizations, that do not pay property taxes, nor do they pay any federal, State, or local income taxes, so that churches that own their own property do not contribute to their community by paying taxes on their property, but in theory, contribute through their contributions and investments made within the community in their charity and services as provided, of which this money comes from the commoners of their community. Additionally, the pastor of a given church, is provided with a very nice tax perk, of being able to deduct from the pastor's income, a housing allowance, so that if a given pastor earns $40,000, but has housing costs, of $30,000, than their effective income tax is based not on their $40,000 income, but on the much lower number of $10,000.
The Third Estate in America, is everyone else, though they may own their own homes, own their own small business, have other investments and things of worth, all are subject to the full taxation authorities of federal, State, local, property, and any other assorted taxes that are charged to common Americans. Of course, within that Third Estate some people are doing much better than others, but in aggregate, as each year marches on, the Third Estate must carry more and more of the burden of the nation, which is why the middle class has been struggling just to maintain its own over the last two generations, and why we seemingly have a permanent underclass, that will never get out from under.