Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.09% of Income Taxes

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ ^ | October 23, 2002 | RUSH

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Income Tax: Who Pays? IRS Figures for 2000

[ancient_geezer]

Bump for later

[NEWwoman]

Good post. We need to be reminded about this every election cycle.

Even better - move election day to April 16th.

[ghostrider]

Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.09% of Income Taxes

Of the bottom 50%, what is the average wage and what would be left after paying for bare essentials that the welfare system would otherwise provide, such a like food, medical, shelter, transportation and utilities. A more meaningful comparison might be disposable personal income, after covering the essentials that government would otherwise get socked with.

[RAT Patrol]

Rush should put this side by side with a chart showing who receives the most government money. The contrast should be very telling.

[The Westerner]

This won't last. The collective Atlas' will shrug to stop paying the collective Pauls.

[ancient_geezer]

blockquote>

. A more meaningful comparison might be disposable personal income,

For what it is worth, this link [ http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3089&sequence=11 ] goes to the latest analysis done by CBO of federal total effective tax rates by income class, and the effective rates for the individual income tax itself.

 

Total income defined as all family cash (aftertax) income + proportion of total federal taxes extracted from that income class through immediate taxation and indirect routes such as consumption expenditure or lower wage etc. Income include entitlement payment, benefits etc.

 

A household consists of the people who share a housing unit, regardless of the relationships among them.

Comprehensive household income equals pretax cash income plus income from other sources. Pretax cash income is the sum of wages, salaries, self-employment income, rents, taxable and nontaxable interest, dividends, realized capital gains, cash transfer payments, and retirement benefits plus taxes paid by businesses (corporate income taxes and the employer's share of Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment insurance payroll taxes) and employee contributions to 401(k) retirement plans. Other sources of income include all in-kind benefits (Medicare, Medicaid, employer-paid health insurance premiums, food stamps, school lunches and breakfasts, housing assistance, and energy assistance). Households with negative income are excluded from the lowest income category but are included in totals.

Individual income taxes are distributed directly to households paying those taxes. Payroll taxes are distributed to households paying those taxes directly or paying them indirectly through their employers. Federal excise taxes are distributed to households according to their consumption of the taxed good or service. Corporate income taxes are distributed to households according to their share of capital income.

a. Income categories are defined by ranking all people by their comprehensive household income adjusted for household size--that is, divided by the square root of the household's size. Quintiles, or fifths, of the income distribution contain equal numbers of people.

Have fun.

[liberallarry]

The bottom 50% of the population is earning 13% of all income and paying 4% of all taxes.

The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom BUT my guess is they are earning more than 1000 times as much

Limbaugh statistics read in a slightly different way.
It's a wonder we don't have an immediate revolution.

[Hunble]

It appears from your link that the bottom 50% actually are taxed at a higher rate than the top 1% of earners. So, yes, the bottom 50% do pay less in an aggregate, but they are paying more of their income in taxes than the rich. This whole argument has always been disingenous and dishonest, IMHO.

You have me absolutly stumped. How do you arrive at this conclusion?

[liberallarry]

Correction. That should read

The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 1% BUT my guess is they are earning more than 1000 times as much

[Hunble]

Yes, 1% of $1,000 = $10

1% of $1 = 1 cent

And your point is?

[liberallarry]

People who have big incomes pay big taxes.
People who have little incomes pay little taxes

1% of the population has huge incomes
50% of the population have tiny incomes.
25% of the population have virtually no incomes.

Rush is wrong about the percentages as well.

[Hunble]

Now since each and every citizen of America is only allowed to cast one vote on election day...

And since every single citizen is represented equally by our elected officials.

And since every single citizen should recieve an equal share of the services provided by our government.

Care to explain to me why only 50% of the citizens are paying for our goverment?

[ancient_geezer]

BUT my guess

How about some figures instead of propaganda.

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3089&sequence=12

As far as the distribution of cash incomes go the following table is enlightening:

 

Distributional Estimates Using Household Cash Income, by Dollar Income Category, 1979-1997 

Table H-1a. Effective Federal Tax Rates for All Households, by Dollar Income Category, Using Household Cash Income Plus Taxes Paid by Businesses, 1979-1997 (In percent)
												1997
Income Category		1979	1981	1983	1985	1987	1989	1991	1993	1995		Under 1997 Law		Under 2000 Law
Total Effective Federal Tax Rate
$0 to $10,000		8.2	7.3	7.1	8.3	8.6	7.9	8.1	8.0	6.9		7.2		7.1
$10,000 to $20,000		11.2	11.3	11.2	12.6	12.0	11.6	11.5	11.4	10.1		9.7		9.6
$20,000 to $30,000		16.2	16.9	15.9	16.8	16.0	16.1	16.1	16.1	16.1		15.6		15.0
$30,000 to $40,000		19.3	19.8	18.3	18.8	18.6	18.5	18.5	18.7	19.0		18.7		17.9
$40,000 to $50,000		21.2	21.9	20.1	20.2	20.2	20.7	20.5	20.9	21.4		20.8		20.0
$50,000 to $75,000		23.0	24.0	21.9	22.2	21.9	22.3	22.4	22.8	23.4		22.9		22.1
$75,000 to $100,000		24.3	25.7	23.1	23.4	23.8	24.0	24.1	24.7	25.5		24.6		24.0
$100,000 to $150,000		26.2	27.2	24.0	24.1	25.1	25.0	25.3	26.1	26.9		26.0		25.7
$150,000 to $200,000		29.8	28.5	24.3	24.3	26.6	26.0	26.6	27.3	28.7		27.8		27.6
$200,000 and Over		36.2	31.4	26.7	25.8	29.5	28.3	28.6	32.5	35.1		32.4		31.9
	All Categories	23.4	23.5	21.2	21.8	22.6	22.8	22.6	23.8	24.9		24.6		24.1

[Koblenz]

I am certainly in favor of lower taxes. However, there are two problems with this analysis:

1) Fica hasn't been included

2) It's based on reported income. Sure, the people that have the highest Adjusted Gross Income are going to pay the most taxes. But if you have someone who made $1 million, has $600,000 in deductions, he'll be listed as having $400,000 in income, not $1 million. So the entire calculation is faulty.

[meyer]

People who have big incomes pay big taxes.
People who have little incomes pay little taxes

That's to be expected but it would be much better if it were exactly proportionate. That is, everyone should pay the same proportion of their income in taxes. One who makes $1000 should pay 10% or $10. One who makes $100,000 should pay 10,000 or 10%. That's the only fair way to do it and the only way to ensure that selective tax cuts aren't used to buy votes.

[Don Corleone]

God only asks for 10%. Where does government get off asking for more? BTW we revolted against King George due to a tax rate that was LESS than 10 per cent.

[Hunble]

I am fair.

If I am paying 3 times what my neighbor is, to support our goverment, can my vote be counted 3 times more than his in the next election?

[liberallarry]

Care to explain to me why only 50% of the citizens are paying for our goverment?

Because only 50% of the citizenry has any money to pay for it...or any money at all. I would have thought that was clear from the statistics.