Posted on 12/19/2017 9:33:52 PM PST by Kaslin
Of the 150,493,263 filers who submitted individual income tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service for the 2015 tax year, only 99,040,729 paid any income tax at all.
Together, those Americans paid a record $1,457,891,441,000 in total income taxes -- for an average of $14,720 per taxpayer.
The other 51,452,534 -- or about 34.2 percent of all filers -- did not pay a penny. Their average income tax payment was $0.
This is a fundamental divide in the American tax system. On one side are those who do pay taxes; on the other, those who don't.
And the divide gets worse.
There were 30,417,609 filers who did not pay income taxes and received $89,614,869,000 in cash back from the federal government.
In other words, they got $89,614,869,000 in welfare payments.
We know this because the IRS tells us so. It calls the $89,614,869,000 in cash that the federal government paid to tax-return filers who paid no taxes the "refundable portion" of "refundable credits."
"Refundable credits were broken out into three parts: the portion used to offset income tax before credits, the portion used to offset all other taxes, and the refundable portion," the IRS explained in its comprehensive report on the individual income taxes it collected for 2015 (the latest year for which the data is available).
"The first portion, which was included in total tax credits, offset income tax before credits," said the IRS report. "The second portion offset all other taxes besides income tax, such as the self-employment tax.
"The IRS treated the last portion, the refundable portion, as a refund and paid it directly to taxpayers who had no tax against which to apply the credits, or whose credits exceeded income tax (and other income-related taxes)," the report said.
"In total, taxpayers claimed $105.3 billion in refundable tax credits," the IRS said. "Of this, $5.7 billion was applied against income taxes and $10.0 billion against all other taxes. The remaining $89.6 billion in refundable credits was refunded to taxpayers."
That is to say it was "refunded" to "taxpayers" who paid no income taxes.
This was not a boon for the "rich."
In fact, according to data published in Table 3.3 of the report, 27,78,931 -- or about 91.2 percent -- of the 30,417,609 tax-return filers who did get a "refundable portion" from the IRS had an adjusted gross income of less than $40,000.
So who paid the taxes the federal government needed to send that $89,614,669,000 to those 30,417,609 who paid no income tax?
One major contributor was a group the IRS calls "married persons filing jointly."
In 2015, according to Table 1.2 in the IRS report, 54,294,820 belonged to this group -- with 41,551,043 joining the side that did pay taxes, and 12,743,777 joining the side that did not.
Thus, while 34.2 percent of all filers paid no income taxes, only 23.5 percent of married couples filing jointly paid no income taxes.
The 41,551,043 married couples filing jointly who did pay income taxes accounted for only 27.6 percent of all 150,493,263 filers. But they made up about 42 percent of the 99,040,729 filers who did pay income taxes.
More tellingly, of the record $1,457,891,441,000 in total income taxes the IRS collected for tax year 2015, married couples filing jointly paid $1,040,684,097,000 of it -- or about 71.4 percent.
So, married couples filing jointly constituted only 42 percent of filers who actually paid income taxes, but they paid 71.4 percent of the income taxes.
These 41,551,043 taxpaying married couples, according to the IRS data, paid an average of about $25,046 in federal income taxes in 2015.
Now, some may say: But there are two people in a married couple who file jointly; of course they should pay more taxes than a single person.
But did single people filing tax returns pay half as much as married couples?
The IRS says 71,086,947 single persons filed tax returns in 2015. Of these, 23,345,062 -- or 32.8 percent -- did not pay any income tax. The 47,741,885 who did paid $326,342,729,000.
That works out to an average of about $6,836 in total income taxes per taxpaying single person.
At that rate, it would take 3.66 taxpaying singles to surrender to the federal government the same income tax as one taxpaying married couple.
The bottom line: The federal government is financially dependent on income tax-paying married couples who jointly file their tax returns, and it has made 30,417,609 filers who pay no income taxes dependent on government by handing them $89,614,669,000 in a single year.
History should apply this test to the Republican tax plan: Did it decrease both the burden on the former and the dependency of the latter?
Amazing...Depressing...Disgusting...WTF...
A deduction reduces your taxable income and, hence, your tax.
An ordinary tax credit reduces the amount of tax you owe, but not below zero. If you have a $1000 tax credit, and you owe $500, you pay nothing, but you don't get a refund.
A refundable tax credit subtracts from the tax you owe, period. If you have a $1000 refundable tax credit, and you owe $500, your tax is -$500 (i.e., the government pays you $500). And, of course, if you owe zip, then you get $1000.
And THESE are the people that want the TAXPAYERS to pay MORE!!
>Will someone please explain more clearly to me, how a person who pays in no taxes gets a refund?
It’s how welfare works now. That’s the deal the GOP made with Bill Clinton.
I bet half of that $89 billion goes to illegal aliens.
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That’s the place to start spending cuts.
Build the wall
Extreme vetting
End diversity lottery
End chain migration
You forgot anchor babies. :)
Lucky for us, they get more back with the new redistribution of wealth passed by the senate.. Much More. Isn’t it great! Not to worry though, the Upper Middle class is footing the bill. As usual. Spend Spend Spend. Obama couldn’t have done it better.
You forgot anchor babies. :)
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Good catch dave.
Still working on my first cup.
Sure you did. In one case your tax dollars worked very hard for Hillary’s presidential success......oh wait.
In another case your tax dollars imported the guy who blew his penis off in NYC trying to kill Americans .....oh wait.
In a third case the EPA poisoned an entire river system due to arrogance and incompetence.....oh wait.
Humm guess all’s you get for your tax dollars is the .gov working against you.
I have always been stuck in the ordinary tax credit.
One year I had a very, very tough year. I didn’t owe, but also didn’t qualify for a refund. My tax preparer that year said to me...you paid in, now go apply for financial assistance...go get your money back. She was serious and I think she was more angry than I was. She explained to me how she prepares taxes all day and it upsets her to watch people get thousands of dollars back...and they never paid a dime in taxes.
bfl
Ah, I see, I’m on by 4th already. :)
It is even worse than that. A certain number of those who are counted as “tax-paying” are government employees, as I was for most of my adult life. Our “taxes” were taken out of our pay before we received it, which is another way of saying that our “taxes” were paid by the same persons who paid our salaries, i.e. the non-government employee taxpayers. And we could apply for a refund of the taxes we did not pay when April 15 rolled around.
Nothing worse than the earned income credit.
All those tax places in the ghetto neighborhoods? Ever wonder why?
Every ghetto welfare king and queen knows why.
They go and lie about making $15000 cutting hair or bootleg taxi or what not (don’t worry for them, it can’t be considered in their welfare qualifications) and then they get a $6000 check from the Treasury for the lie.
Just their fee for services rendered: voting Democrat. :)
Yet Nary a whisper about the benefits of the across-the-board flat tax.
I was once one of those. We had four kids under 18, earned a modest single income, owned our house and itemized taxes.
Then I became gainfully unemployed. Between the child tax credit, mortgage deductions, charitable deductions for donations made before I lost the job, we ended up getting back $2000 or so more than we paid in.
Of course, that all changed the next year.
A couple of my now grown kids will be the same. They live on their own but both have very modest incomes. The personal deduction allows them to pay little to no federal taxes.
“You forgot anchor babies. :)”
[Wiki] [QUOTE] ...role of the child, who automatically qualifies as an American citizen under jus soli and the rights guaranteed in the 14th Amendment. The term is also often used in the context of the debate over illegal immigration to the United States to refer to children of illegal immigrants, but may be used for the child of any immigrant. A similar term, “passport baby”, has been used in Canada for children born through so-called “maternity” or “birth tourism”.[UNQUOTE]
Note: (unverified) Canada transports mother and baby back to country of origin after birth and subsequent aftercare.
Note: [WIKI] [QUOTE] Jus soli is associated with permissive citizenship rights. Most countries with unconditional jus soli laws tend to give birthright citizenship (and nationality) based on jus sanguinis rules as well, although these stipulations tend to be more restrictive than in countries that use jus sanguinis as the primary basis for nationality.[UNQUOTE]
Yes, but the article says they paid NO tax. I take that to mean they literally paid zero tax all year. Not a refund, but the government actually paid them, though they had paid in nothing. I’m under the impression that these people, were, for instance, on welfare, and paid in nothing all year, then filed and were paid tax credits:
“The IRS treated the last portion, the refundable portion, as a refund and paid it directly to taxpayers who had no tax against which to apply the credits, or whose credits exceeded income tax (and other income-related taxes),” the report said...That is to say it was “refunded” to “taxpayers” who paid no income taxes.”
I bet half of that $89 billion goes to illegal aliens.”””
OR MORE........
This is the main area of concern for me-—
Get the illegals out of this country & quit making those who are legal her pay for their ‘INCOME’ from the IRS.
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