The numbers reported in the Times are for total tax liabilities. Income tax is a whole lot more dramatic:
In regards to income tax, the bottom 20% of income earners earn 5.1% of the money earned in the country. The bottom 60% (the lower three quintiles) earn 29.6% of the money earned in the country. The top 20% earn 50.8% of the income earned in the country and the top 1% earn 13.4% of the income in the country. On the other hand, the lowest quintile (bottom 20%), cumulatively, contributed -6.6% (a NEGATIVE 6.6%) of all the revenue collected by individual income tax. The lowest 60% (the lowest three quintiles), cumulatively, contributed -7.4% (a NEGATIVE 7.4%) of all the revenue collected by individual income tax. The top quintile (the top 20%), cumulatively, contributed 94.1% of all the revenue collected by individual income tax. The top 1%, cumulatively, contributed 38.7%.
What could be unfair about that? Sounds like it's time to soak the rich more. (/sarc)
............................................................................................. we will have more people riding in the cart than pulling the cart. “
Governor Bobby Jindal
homosexuals, abortionists, militant atheists, earth worshipers, black racists, illegals, the dead, multiple voters, cheaters, welfare free loaders, social security disability scammers, and feminists.
Obama received a significant majority of these groups in the 2008 election: single mothers, divorced women, the elderly, Catholics, College and University students.
More money can be raised from those who pay nothing than from those already over taxed.
Fair is incredibly miss valued when some get refunds for unpaid taxes and their net tax paid is actually negative
Remember the old article about the ten guys who always go for drinks on Friday afternoons? 5 guys pay nothing, 3 pay for 1, 1 pays for 2, and one pays for 7. What happens when the guy who pays for 7 doesn’t show?
While true, I don’t think most of the middle class is too concerned about how overtaxed the rich are. A good many want them to pay even more.
I think there would be a much better response if we were to talk more about the taxes imposed on production and how it affects job creation and consumer costs. Its America’s hidden VAT tax and most people only understand that things simply cost too much and they blame the manufacturer for it.
I used to work for a company that made interior door skins for Cadillac. The raw materials to make the doors cost less than a dollar but by the time they made it to the Cadillac plant in Livonia the finished product was valued at some $600. Yet even at $600+ the factory still only made a couple of bucks per door after costs.
People need to be made to understand that the individual pieces of the products we buy are taxed and even the machines that make those parts are taxed. The screws are taxed, the glue is taxed, the paint is taxed, the plastic is taxed, the property the factory sits on is taxed, the building is taxed and the energy used is taxed. And then there are labor and transportation costs.
Its not a complicated issue. Years ago My niece asked my why penny candy cost 10 cents. I was able to reasonably explain why candy that cost a fraction of a cent to make cost a dime to buy. She did a few liberal years in college but has since returned to conservatism and I recently found her explaining to he niece more or less what I said more than a decade ago.
If it were up to me, I would dump all the taxes on the consumer at the point of sale and clearly label all things with their actual cost vs taxes.
MUMP
People with assets are taxed every which way possible. The more you have, the more tollbooths they put in your path. It’s sickening. The rich must be shaken down to finance entitlements. Barak Obama is leading a bolshevik revolution in slow motion.
Here are lots of graphs from the last set of data, ending in 2007:
US Federal Taxes by Income Level 1979-2007
Until now, that was the last data that the CBO has published. The IRS has published data up to 2009, but for federal individual income tax only:
US Federal Individual Income Taxes by Income Level 2001-2009
I've written an extensive posting about this data here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2903291/posts
It will take a while before I can build similar graphs from this new data.
A quick look at the tax rates turned up something really interesting.
The burden of taxes have been shifting more and more onto the "rich" over the past 30 years. In the past 2 years, the average tax rates for the bottom 80% of taxpayers has dropped significantly. Despite that, their SHARE of federal taxes has gone up.
In contrast, the tax rates for the top 20% have (proportionally) dropped much less, or even held steady. But, since their income has been significantly reduced, the tax revenue from that segment has been reduced as well -- and their share of federal taxes has shrunk.
This is yet another folly of depending on significant tax revenue from the "rich": their income rises and falls with the economy, much more so than everyone else. So, when times are bad, the impact on tax revenue is magnified by the dependency on the "rich".
I didn't notice this before, and I think it's worth a separate response. I've explained it in other postings, but I want to make it clear:
The reason that the top 1%'s share of federal taxes have gone down since 2007 is because their share of income has gone down. Here are the numbers:
Share of federal taxes: 2007-26.7%, 2009-22.3%. That's an absolute reduction of 4.4%. But the relative change is actually (26.7-22.3)/26.7, or 16.5%.
Share of before-tax income: 2007-18.7%, 2009-13.4%. That's an absolute reduction of 5.3%. But, the relative change is (18.6-13.4)/13.4, or 28.3%.
Do you see what happened? The top 1%'s share of federal taxes went down because their share of before-tax income went down even more. So, if you hear anyone claim that the rich paid less taxes in 2009 than 2007, you must push back right away with the factual counterpoint that it was because their income went down even more.
As I've noted in my previous posting, this is one of the bad aspects of relying on the "rich" to foot most of our income tax bill. Their income is much more sensitive to the economic cycle. As a result, recessions now have a disproportionate impact on federal tax revenues.
Maybe someday someone will figure out the total of all taxes and not just Federal Income.
Thanks, you two saved me hours of research, I was just about to start hunting for this very data :-)