Check out the latest stat's released by IRS (2007) on distribution of income and personal income taxes paid.

Anyone can cherry certain pick numbers, so I'll let you decide what you think.

I will say that I'm quite surprised at the distribution - enough to make me ponder the term: "Paying a fair share."

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

The facts are very different than what I expected to see.

Marc

    Looks about right Marc. After deductions, Fuel, bait, capital construction fund etc, my taxes ran about 54-56% every year. I used to get a bit irritated when someone would suggest that people who made more than 6 figures weren't paying their fair share in taxes. I'd like for them to come out and risk their asses at my job, and get pencil whipped for over fifty cents on every dollar they made. Oh well in 05 the Feds decided to make over two thirds of us unemployed anyway, so that must make someone happy.

That's correct Marc.

Ya know, the IRS could take 100% of the taxable income from people earning more than $500,000 and it wouldn't pay for Obama's deficit!

Hence the need to raise taxes on the middle class.  Wait for it!

   Those in the lowest 50% of wage earners pay no income taxes. Am I reading that right Marc?

Monty,

Yes, that huge disparity does surprise me. I didn't realize how over taxed they are already.

This goes to the core of the divergence of your beliefs and mine.

It is my perception that you feel it is reasonable and just to try and "level the playing field" by stripping money from the wealthy because they "can afford it."   

I see life as being non-Utopian in America, there should always be hard working clever folks will earn more money than most of us. Like it or not, there are also people at the other end of the spectrum who cannot or will not earn money. Reasonable safety nets are required.

I have a question for you:
How much more do you feel should be considered "paying a fair share?"  What percentage of income should be taken from those that have money?

Marc wrote on Aug 10^th, 2009 at 7:02pm:


Part of goes to numeracy, I believe. Your focus on "1% paying 40%" is a statistic that is misleading.  That "1%" has far more than 1% of the wealth, and would pay far more than 1% of the taxes even under a flat tax rate.  That "1%" or 300,000 people makes as much as 150 million people, and pay far more than indicated by the size of the group, because the tax is on money, not the size of the group.  Nothing unfair there.

Quote:


That is not my opinion - Like Adam Smith (the founder of modern capitalism) and Thomas Jefferson, I do believe that a person with a low income (say $12,000 a year) who is barely making it should not be taxed at the same rate as someone who is doing quite well (say $1,000,000).

So I don't believe in a flat tax rate, but the reason is not to 'strip the wealthy of their wealth."  And the wealthy have been doing quite well (thank you very much!) in recent years - they continue to make more and more.  The government is not taking all they have (nor should they) and that wealth doesn't seem to be trickling down to the average person, either.

Here's one quote from Thomas Jefferson:

Quote:


Jefferson, like the nation, ultimately decided that "first wants" or basic needs are a reality, and the people should be taxed more on their surplus.

   Did I ever tell ya how much I luv ya Barb?

Not really Brew -- if you don't buy you don't pay... 10% seems fair to ALL. I buy Hot dogs so I wouldn't pay as much as people who buy STEAKS. Might get people back to their "raisin'".

I've watched "poor" people all my life and it's always seemed that they can "afford" to buy things that I can't afford.

And we could cut out the FOOD STAMP program and go back to "commodities" (like were around in the 50s). Give the farmers somewhere to SELL their stuff instead of shipping them overseas to "needy" countries. This country needs to be taking care of our own for a change.

Hugs BD

BarbaraD wrote on Aug 11^th, 2009 at 9:06am:


The "Food for Peace" (which was started by a Republican President) is program that costs about 1.2 billion dollars a year - that works out to about $4 for every American.  It should be reviewed and reconsidered for a variety of reasons, but let's be real.  Even if eliminated entirely (which may not be in the best interests of the country), it is the cherry on the top of the cake, and saying no to the cherry won't lead to real weight loss.

Looking at the budget, we do take care of our own:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security are paid for from FICA taxes - and the wealthy actually pay a lower percent here because only the first $102,000 of compensation are taxed, and dividends and interest are not taxed, only wages.  There are no brackets for FICA - the rate is the same for all employees on the first 100 grand.

If we remove the blue and green pieces to get things paid for from the general income tax, then military spending amounts to 47% of that.

I think if you really want to limit the tax rate to 10% Barb, we need to close down our 900+ foreign military bases and convert half our aircraft carriers to floating hotels that will pay their own way.  If Fedex doesn't want to buy fighter jets for its express delivery service, maybe another nation would be interested.  We would also have to shut down NASA, the National Weather Service, and the billions of dollars that the federal government spends each year on medical and scientific research.  That would get us started towards a 10% income tax rate for everyone - but we would still have to make lots of cuts.

BarbaraD wrote on Aug 11^th, 2009 at 9:06am:

But poor folk spend a much higher percentage of their income on necessities than do their rich brethren. For a rich family, they might spend 5% of their income on groceries. But poor folk might spend more like 25% of what they take in.

Seems the tax burden is disproportionately borne by the poor with a flat sales tax.

Now a flat INCOME tax, where the first x dollars are exempt, then everyone pays y% of every dollar in income to our Benevolent Caretaker might make more sense.

Monty, you're right about the percentage number. 23% of 130 is 29.9 (basic math on mark ups), but what does that have to do with the price of eggs?   (I've been trying to explain mark-ups to clients for years.)

Another thing we could do with my plan is to eliminate the IRS (not a bad idea) - THEN we could cut down the time Congress spends in session thus we could cut their salaries. Say they just need to meet once every other year for about 6 months. They could do LESS harm that way - the taxpayers would save money on useless BS.

Of course we'd have to get a whole NEW congress to vote that in... but it's a thought.....

I'm for eliminating the income tax.  It was supposed to be temporary....

That was a joke, right?