Posted on 04/07/2010 12:48:15 PM PDT by crusty old prospector
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem. About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization. Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it's still almost always better to file: That's the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers. In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax. Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year. The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
And a surprising number of Obama appointees are not patriotic Americans by that definition either.
I’ve never been good at playing the system myself.
Unless the vat applies to garage sales and craigslist, it won’t affect me much.
Democrats have already spoken out to END social security withholding for low income workers and raise the level of payment by others.
“Obama “talks” of social justice...”
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“Social justice” has been a done deal for a long time.
Equality of opportunity has existed in this country for decades.
"Obama money!" "Obama's stash!"
Mr. Galt, I presume.
They ‘vote’ therefore they contribute their ‘fair share’. These people should be shunned,castigated, stimatized and shunned. They are not Americans; they are scum
The left miscasts the phrase “land of opportunity” to mean “if you don’t get ahead, you must not have been working hard enough”.
You have the potential to get ahead, not the guaranty of it.
However, in the Old World, you couldn’t enter whatever profession you wanted. You had to belong to the Guild. And to get in, generally your father had to be in the Guild...
I disagree with the math in this article- “The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.”
My family income was 129,000.00 and we paid almost 30K in federal taxes-when we did our taxes we did get a refund of federal refund $7500.00 but the dedections we got was our home-we do not quailfy for any IEC tax credits because our income is too high- and by the way this refund had nothing to do with the supposed tax cut from Obama as a matter of fact we paid more this year even though our income has remained the same since 2006. The article makes it seem as if you pay no income tax if you make less than 366,000.00 this is not true more propoganda to say that 95% of americans received a tax cut under Obama at least that is how I read the article.
That's true. But if you stay on it very long, your income ends up being so low that you don't have to worry about it much. The odds are that if you worked part of the year, the taxes from that job being withheld at the assumption of a higher annual pay rate, will cover your tax.
Even that is wrong. The Fair Tax is the only logically fair way for taxation. It's no ones business how much money I make.
I made $45,000 last year took the standard deductions and paid plenty.
How do I get into that 40%?
They are working their way to getting all your money before you even see it in your check.
I first knew that paying income taxes was a racket several years ago when I saw what the Earned Income Tax Credit was. How could someone get a rebate when they paid no income taxes?
You must be single.
Vote for Obama.
That "children under 17" might be sufficient, but it's not necessary. Mortgage interest and property tax, credits and deductions for kids in college, capital gains losses (lots of that going around these days), and credits for solar power are only a few of the other ways that come to mind immediately that enable families to knock the tax liability way down.
If you can’t get ahead, you are not working hard enough. Most who can’t get ahead are just plain lazy. It is far easier to remain in a rut than climb out especially when there others there to complain to.
According to Glenn Beck, something like 247 congressmen manage to avoid paying taxes. I say we start with them.
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