Posted on 04/18/2011 11:37:24 AM PDT by jazusamo
(CNSNews.com) - When he presented his plan for dealing with the national debt last week, President Barack Obama suggested a number of ways he would like to increase taxes on people he referred to as “millionaires and billionaires.”
However, recently released statistics from the Internal Revenue Service indicate that taxing away 100 percent of the income of every American who earned $500,000 or more in 2009 would still have left the United States with a massive annual deficit.
In fact, in tax year 2009 (the last year for which IRS has published statistics), the combined gross income of all Americans earning $500,000 per year or more was about $1.03 trillion ($1,029,256,075,000.00) of which these Americans paid $256.7 billion ($256,699,499,000.00) in federal income taxes.
That left this group of Americans about $773 billion ($772,556,576,000.00) in income that the federal government had not taken away in income taxes.
Also during tax year 2009, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, the national debt increased by $1.61 trillion ($1,611,544,812,899.90).
If the federal government had increased the income-tax rate on Americans earning more than $500,000 to 100 percent in 2009--and seized the remaining $773 billion in income it had not initially taken away from these Americans--that would have closed the federal deficit for the year to $839 billion ($838,988,236,899.90).
After taxing away 100 percent of the income of those earning $500,000 or more in 2009, the Obama administration would still have needed to increase taxes on Americans earning less than $500,000 by a total of $839 billion--just to balance federal accounts for the year.
Wonder is the a**hole includes himself when he speaks of “millionaires & billionaires”?
Obama is an idiot!
It would also kill any and all incentives to work. As much as altruisitic politicians like to think, no one will give up one second of his time if he knows the product of that time will be confiscated.
You’re absolutely right plus it would have to cost many many jobs to people those dollars formerly supported.
Well, then 100% isn’t high enough!
Right, all these predictions are based on a static view of economics which is false. More taxes mean more tax evasion and capital flight. Long term it means less investment, less income and leass revenues to the taxers. Hasn’t Obama ever read about killing the goose that laid the golden egg?
Obama will just tax 500%, whatever he thinks it will take.
Exactly. Better make it 400% to be safe.
Of course the leftists would just blabber on about how defense spending needs to be slashed entirely to cover the rest of the deficit.
They won't settle for what you earn. It is what you have that the leftists want and they will take it at the point of a gun.
The only way these types of tax increases CAN generate the revenues that the CBO would project is if they are enacted after the tax year is over and made retroactive so that firms and individuals have no means of making economic decisions to reduce their tax liability.
In that scenario, the new tax policy could generate the inadequate revenue stream to the government for one year - and one year only. At that point firms and individuals would make rational choices to preclude finding themselves in a similar situation the following year, with devastating effects on the economy as a whole.
What I want to know is what is the breaking point of annual income where if taxed at 75% the annual budget would be balanced. I’d guess it is somewhere below 100k. This would make a neat Flash game in time for the 2012 election.
Again this prediction too would be based on a static view of the economy. How many people would work less if they could spend more of their own money versus work harder to get more. How many wives, working to make that motgage payment of pay for private school would be able to stay home and raise a family? Would head start enrollments fall? Lots of varibles to consider. But would less taxes allow us to return to the Leave it Beaver nuclear family? I would think so. Would we?
You could confiscate all the assets of all the billionaires in this country and you wouldn’t even fund the deficit for one year.
Line 22, IRS Form 1040. The IRS captures and reports all Line 22 information (and all the other lines, as well).
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