Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The rich pay majority of U.S. income taxes
Yahoo Finance ^ | 03/12/2013 | Steve Hargreaves

Posted on 03/12/2013 9:48:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Many people think that the rich are able to weasel their way out of taxes, but they actually pay an overwhelming majority of the taxes in the United States.

What's more, their share of the tax burden is increasing. The top 10 percent of taxpayers paid over 70% of the total amount collected in federal income taxes in 2010, the latest year figures are available, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank. That's up from 55% in 1986.

The remaining 90% bore just under 30% of the tax burden. And 47% of all Americans pay hardly anything at all -- a fact that got Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney into political hot water last year.

"There's been a huge myth created that the rich aren't paying anything," said William McBride, the Tax Foundation's chief economist. "The rich pay a much higher rate than the poor."

These numbers may not tell the whole story though. The tax code is getting more progressive, said Roberton Williams, a senior economist at the centrist Tax Policy Center. In 1986 there were just two tax rates -- 15% and 28%. Now there are seven income tax brackets, going from a low of 10% to a high of nearly 40%.

While taxes on investment income have declined a bit since 1986, incentives like child care and income tax credits for the poor have been greatly expanded.

But the rich are able to take advantage of tax breaks too. That's why Williams said there's a popular notion that the wealthy are somehow cheating the tax man. In fact, the Tax Policy Center found last year that there about 4,000 households with incomes over $1 million that were not paying anything at all.

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: incometax; millionaires; rich; taxes; wealth
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last

1 posted on 03/12/2013 9:48:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind; C. Edmund Wright

This why your claim that illegals pay taxes is suspect.


2 posted on 03/12/2013 9:56:32 AM PDT by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
I think Rush Limbaugh was saying this in 1989... FReepers have known it longer than that even. So, Yahoo...

WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL!

3 posted on 03/12/2013 9:58:10 AM PDT by backwoods-engineer (Blog: www.BackwoodsEngineer.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind


4 posted on 03/12/2013 9:58:32 AM PDT by Iron Munro (I miss America, don't you?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: backwoods-engineer

They trot this article or one just like it every year during tax season.


5 posted on 03/12/2013 9:59:17 AM PDT by wiggen (The teacher card. When the racism card just won't work.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Of course they do! Does anyone expect an EITC applicant, WICs receiving, Section 8 housed, TANF/SNAP enabled, EBT armed leeching charger would actually “pay their fair share?”

This country consists of four groups: 1)diseased, thieving, rapist, murdering illegals who choke public resources for education, health and government services; 2)’victim’ ethnic groups that identify with their dear leader and feel entitled to “getting paid”; 3) guilt-ridden white people who are enthralled at the possible adoration of 1) and 2); 4) Actual Americans who work and go about their business who wonder why they are so hated.


6 posted on 03/12/2013 9:59:47 AM PDT by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Obama: class warrior #1.
He smears the rich to get their money.
He smears the rich so the young will not aspire.
He smears the rich to increase the national debt.
He smears the rich so they will leave America.

Obama has a plan to destroy America before the entire world.
He will do it in a way that allows his hands stay clean.
He will be able to blame everyone but himself.
He will be able to say “They did it to themselves.”


7 posted on 03/12/2013 10:05:15 AM PDT by Rapscallion (The people sense what Obama has in store for America.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
No one should care. The federal income tax is an outdated relic and should simply be abolished.

End of class warfare as we know it.

8 posted on 03/12/2013 10:05:30 AM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gaffer

You are spewing class warfare hatred. Does it make you feel better? Or, perhaps you’d like to get on the bandwagon to ABOLISH the federal income tax.


9 posted on 03/12/2013 10:06:34 AM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah

You are an apologist sympathizer.


10 posted on 03/12/2013 10:08:12 AM PDT by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Gaffer

You left out the fifth group: (the holy-er-than-thou, we know what’s best for you, you’re not paying your fair share you rich bastards) Democrat left-wing Liberals who, for the most part, seem to be running this country into the ground.


11 posted on 03/12/2013 10:08:43 AM PDT by doc11355
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: doc11355

no- they comprise groups 1, 2 and 3....


12 posted on 03/12/2013 10:11:56 AM PDT by God luvs America (63.5 million pay no income tax and vote for DemoKrats...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah; Gaffer

I have to agree with Gaffer here. F*** PC bull****...someone needs to tell it like it is!


13 posted on 03/12/2013 10:12:12 AM PDT by EnigmaticAnomaly (Dim Logic: "Let me vote Democrat. Hey, I got screwed! Let me vote Democrat. Hey, I got screwed!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: doc11355; muawiyah

Tell it to Muawiyah.....with Muawiyah...complaining about being raped financially, et al is “Class Warfare”....apparently, he’s been hiding in a hole throughout the entirety of Obama’s administration(s)


14 posted on 03/12/2013 10:12:31 AM PDT by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
"The vast majority of income gains have gone to the people at the top," he said.

And it's this growing issue of income inequality that seems to anger people the most. Overall salaries and wages haven't even kept pace with inflation over the past few years.

And why is it that most of the gains have gone to the people at the top?

Well that will inevitably happen in a stagnant or shrinking economy because more people are unemployed, under employed or working part time.

In a stagnant economy it is an employers market the employer can afford to pay lower wages and give less generous raises.

This is Obama’s economy. He can no longer blame the poor economy on Bush because he and the Democrats have had their way for over 5 years.

This failing economy is the results of rampant socialist policies and a hate the rich campaign led from the top by Nancy Pelosi and Obama.

The rich may be fairing better than the middle class but only because the laws of economics dictates that they will.

15 posted on 03/12/2013 10:18:15 AM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gaffer

You live in Georgia, a state tha receives far more per tax dollar than my state does.

Ostensibly, that means we have lots of people working and paying “into the system.” And yet, my state is one of the most liberal in the nation.

When you figure out CT for me, let me know.


16 posted on 03/12/2013 10:20:48 AM PDT by whattajoke (Let's keep Conservatism real.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Gaffer

You are an advocate for the continuation of the federal income tax system. That makes you an enemy of the people of the United States and a rich man’s toady.


17 posted on 03/12/2013 10:24:23 AM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind; All
Astoundingly, not only were most of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention wealthy, George Washington the Bill Gates of his time, but when the delegates signed the Constitution they undoubtedly knew that they were committing themselves, and their rich friends, to uniquely bearing the burden of paying all the taxes necessary to run the federal government. This is evidenced by the following excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's writings.
"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. … Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.

H O W E V E R ...

Justice John Marshall had also officially clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially anything which Congress cannot justify under the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I, the limited powers which the states have delegated to Congress.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

So to me, the reason that the rich constantly look for tax loopholes to keep Congress from stealing their wealth is that rich are probably not aware of Justice Marshall's case precedent which limits Congress's power to lay taxes.

Otherwise, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention arguably left it up to rich USA citizens to police Congress to make sure that Congress worked within its Section 8 limited powers.

18 posted on 03/12/2013 10:25:16 AM PDT by Amendment10
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: EnigmaticAnomaly

Cut the cr*p ~ I advocate abolishing the federal income tax and all at once you people kvetching about it’s problems want us to keep it ~ who you working for? Soros?


19 posted on 03/12/2013 10:27:28 AM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

What is the $ amount where the top 10% begins?


20 posted on 03/12/2013 10:28:40 AM PDT by stuartcr ("I have habits that are older than the people telling me they're bad for me.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson