Posted on 07/21/2008 5:12:16 AM PDT by shrinkermd
...The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. Barack Obama says he's going to cut taxes for those at the bottom, but that's also going to be a challenge because Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. Perhaps he thinks half the country should pay all the taxes to support the other half.
Aha, we are told: The rich paid more taxes because they made a greater share of the money. That is true. The top 1% earned 22% of all reported income. But they also paid a share of taxes not far from double their share of income. In other words, the tax code is already steeply progressive.
We also know from income mobility data that a very large percentage in the top 1% are "new rich," not inheritors of fortunes. There is rapid turnover in the ranks of the highest income earners, so much so that people who started in the top 1% of income in the 1980s and 1990s suffered the largest declines in earnings of any income group over the subsequent decade...
...If Mr. Obama does succeed in raising tax rates on the rich, we'd also wager that the rich share of tax payments would fall. The last time tax rates were as high as the Senator wants them -- the Carter years -- the rich paid only 19% of all income taxes, half of the 40% share they pay today.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
2) As long as we continue to allow the liberals to focus the discussion on excess government spending only on military spending, we will never have an intelligent discussion about federal government spending levels.
The military is one of the very few things that is specifically authorized in the US Constitution. The War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the Clinton investment in midnight basketball, etc., is outside the scope of authorized government spending, but unfortunately, it is also outside the scope of most current discussion about spending. We are waging the wrong battle in this War about Fairness.
Instead of a gas-tax holiday, Congress considers gas-tax hike
My wife and I together (joint filers) paid > $111,000 in income taxes for 2007. Sure, we have a strong cash flow, but also worked very, very hard to get to where we are in life. We were given our undergraduate educations by hard-working parents, but after that everything we did was based in merit and work. We were in debt with graduate and professional school loans, and paid them off completely and within the allocated timeframe. In addition to our taxes we give plentifully to our church, the VFW, various missions, and such.
I resent lilke hel* hearing from the likes of an affirmative action leftwing pissant like Barack Obama, and the leftist democrat party, that I and my wife do not pay our “fair share”. I can tell Mr. Obama that if he attempts to raise our taxes more, we will simply work less and defer income to less-taxed sources. We will not pay more than we do now, we will pay less. And we are the tip of the iceberg as far as that’s concerned. The truly rich will shelter money and reduce taxes. Obama will tip the US economy into a recession or depression with these policies.
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Every individual in this country with an income of over $500/yr should be filing a 1040 and paying Federal income tax...even if it’s only $2/yr.This bullbleep of only 66% (or whatever the percentage is)of adults even being required to file is largely responsible for the “sure,I’ll vote to increase *their* taxes” attitude that exists today.
Propose that all wealth over $5 million, including foundations, be taxed at 50% and watch the liberal pigs like kennedy and clinton squeal.
the rich will pay their fair share only when everything they have is confiscated and placed in government coffers.
With inflation and asset value destruction, that's exactly what happens, even above the taxes paid.
I am sick and tired of hearing this class envy statement. There is no tax on wealth in this country. Therefore, there is no such thing as the rich paying anything based upon their state of being rich. Instead, it is income (i.e. wealth creation) that is being taxed, regardless of their overall wealth.
Someone should ask the Democrats if they really want to tax wealth. It should be interesting to hear responses from John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Ted Kennedy, Maria Cantwell, John Corzine, Hillary Clinton, etc.
You mean the Kennedys? /sarc
“Tax the Rich” is a way of saying, “Tax the hell out of the upper middle class so they won’t get as rich as we are.” This is a tax on the productive money in the economy—money that does not lavish in a some back account but is plowed back into the economy. That is why the really rich in this country despise the upper middle class, they see them as a threat and are way too independent, so they want to tax them into oblivion.
The people who pay no tax on the other hand think that the rich will “pay their fair share.” What a crock, the ultra rich have all kinds of ways to shelter their money. It is the upper middle class that will fork out big time.
"I'll tell you what's fair, and what's not!"
with reference to higher and higher tax rates...
cast not thy pearls at the feet of swine.
Reminds me of the Billy Preston song, "Nuthin' From Nuthin' Leaves Nuthin'"....
They may pay little or no income tax, but all the other taxes still apply: sales tax, various local taxes, etc.
But, it should be obvious that someone who pays no income tax, cannot get a "reduction" of their income tax. You can't reduce something to less than zero.
bad news if you have a house or a job democrats consider you "the rich"
Ever wonder why the popular vote in elections runs about 52-48% for either candidate? Change the number of people paying taxes and it will change the vote count percentage.
The goal of tax increases for the upper middle class is to punish their success. The ultimate aim of envy is to destroy the envied object. Jealousy is quite different. Here one wishes to possess what the jealous object is receiving.
They don’t call them “envy taxes” for nothing.
Welfare and other tax-fueled giveaways can be thought of as a tax with a negative number.
It just doesn’t take much to be rich any more .... wish I felt that way
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