This is supposedly a “gotcha” expose of the Republican claim about who pays income taxes. Which completely avoids the assertion the Dems have been bellering about that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. So the clown who wrote this article pulls a sleight-of-hand and says that because many of the 47& are poor and elderly, and the rest are paying payroll taxes, the Republican argument is invalid. That’s not the crux of the problem. The problem is the people who are already paying close to 100% of the federal income tax burden are being accused by Dems of not paying enough. If close to 100% is not enough, how much is enough?
I am a 28% no federal tax but i am paying payroll taxes. I am proud of that, but wish I was a 53.6%
Who wants to be 18.4% unless they have no draw from the government.
What if as we get older we push to be self dependent wealthy. Nothing we do would cause the gov to pull taxes on us. Only those working would pay for what gov is doing that day. We are spending our weath fon those making thier money.
What if I was out of work and was not making a payroll tax. I would not need Gov to fund my life. I would think there would be charities I could goto to get the help my family needs. I would be dependent on my local charities that my community supports. I would strive to be the one helping the charities. Giving back to those that need is awesome.
What is wrong with the discussion? Why cant we look at what the Gov is and make it right. I dont need a Fed gov when I could have local Charities!!!!!!!
PAYROLL TAX is NOT an INCOME TAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so damned tired of people trying to make out like it is. They are the REQUIRED contributions to Social Security and Medicare - NOT FEDERAL TAXES. So the author’s premise it is just the ‘poor and elderly’ is bullshit.
We Conservatives have allowed the liberals to create this 50% underclass. It has taken them 30+ years and they have done it slowly.
Obviously, it needs to be changed. But how and at what speed?
IMHO, our first priority should be to stop the growth. Grandfather those who are in that class right now and raise the bar a good bit for future applicants.
Our second priority should be to reduce taxpayer funded giveaways for the current class. But slowly. Say, maybe 5% per year.
This issue will not be solved overnight. But we absolutely must stop the growth that is threatening to bring down the country.
Does that 53% percentage include the plethora of unionized government employees at all levels that are underworked and overpaid retiring in their early 50s at 90% of their last paycheck??? How many of these are going to vote for you??
You just insulted a whole lot of the working poor who pay payroll taxes and the elderly not living on those fat government pensions.
Whose votes are you really going after???
If Ryan had said this, there would be pressure now to remove him from the ticket. Romney does not understand that a good chunk of the 53 percent is also for Obama, particularly suburban women in PA, OH, MI, VA, and WI.
What is forgotten about the 47% is that they all pay sales taxes, local taxes, real estate taxes, state taxes, and property taxes, and Medicare and Social Security taxes.
It’s the burden of these taxes that affect the poor more than anyone else — and keep them poor.
After all that plus EBT, SNAP, CRACKLE and POP, I guyess they are not really poor anymore are they Joe?
I'm not sure why this is thought of as a "setback." Those 47% would not have voted for him, anyway. While it may push a couple out of the lower end of the "independents," it should attract more than that number at the upper end.
"Upper" and "lower" are subjectively used here, but you know what I mean.
There is a third way. If you’re working your butt off supporting a wife and a couple of kids on an income of around $50,000 then the odds are that thanks to deductions and child tax credits you don’t pay income tax. That is the average family in the country. They aren’t poor, they’re just trying to get by. And they appear to be part of the 47% that Romnney has written off as never going to vote for him. How logical is that?
But, how they gonna show they have Obamacare if they don’t have taxes to pay? If they don’t have Obamacare and have no tax returns how will they be “fined” for not having Obamacare?
We're talking 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.
(Obama has now eliminated the job search requirement)
We're talking record food stamp recipients.
We're talking record disability recipients.
The real missing info here is the number of people who are in a NEGATIVE INCOME TAX position:
A significant number of people qualify for a REFUNDABLE credit, like the Earned Income Credit or the Making Work Pay tax credit. They not only have no income tax liability, both of these credits are refundable.
Say, for example, their total tax liability was $1,000. Below that line, the form totals the amount withheld or paid in, and several tax credits. Let’s say they paid in $900, and then got an EIC of $800. A $1,000 tax bill, less their tax payments of $900 and less their $800 EIC, and they get $700 refund. THAT is a negative income tax.
I will bet the statistics do no show these people as getting government assistance, but in fact, they do. These are transfer payments.
"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39
I am part of the ‘elderly’ category.
I can tell with assurance that I will NOT vote for Obama—not now—not ever—& didn’t in the first place.
ping
So to be clear...
47% pay NO income tax. Some of those pay social security tax.
And 53% pay BOTH income tax AND social security tax!!
That means the 53% are contributing even more to carry the others!
Aren’t there tax credits that would allow some of these people to get back other peoples money even if they have no tax liability of their own?
Bzzzz
Yes it is. I pay it. Thank you Slick Willy.