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

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

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Only The Rich Pay Taxes

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

October 23, 2002

The IRS has released the FY 2000 data for individual income tax returns. The numbers illustrate a truth that will startle you: that half of Americans with the highest incomes pays 96.09% of all income tax. This nukes the liberal lie that the rich don't pay taxes. The top 1%, who earn 20.81% of all income covered under the income tax, are paying 37.42% of the federal tax bite.

Think of it this way: less than four dollars out of every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. Are the top half millionaires? Noooo, more like "thousandaires." The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999. (The top 1% earned $293,000-plus.) Americans who want to are continuing to improve their lives - and those who don't want to, aren't. Here are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay:

Top 5% - 56.47% of all income taxes; Top 10% - 67.33% of all income taxes; Top 25% - 84.01% of all income taxes. Top 50% - 96.09% of all income taxes. The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.91% of all income taxes. The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 1%! And who earns what? The top 1% earns 20.81% of all income. The top 5% earns 35.30% of the pie. The top 10% earns 46.01%; the top 25% earns 67.15%, and the top 50% earns 87.01% of all the income.

The Rich Earned Their Dough, They Didn't Inherit It (Except Ted Kennedy)

The bottom 50% is paying a tiny bit of the taxes, so you can't give them much of a tax cut by definition. Yet these are the people to whom the Democrats claim to want to give tax cuts. Remember this the next time you hear the "tax cuts for the rich" business. Understand that the so-called rich are about the only ones paying taxes anymore.

I had a conversation with a woman who identified herself as Misty on Wednesday. She claimed to be an accountant, yet she seemed unaware of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which now ensures that everyone pays some taxes. AP reports that the AMT, "designed in 1969 to ensure 155 wealthy people paid some tax," will hit "about 2.6 million of us this year and 36 million by 2010." That's because the tax isn't indexed for inflation! If your salary today would've made you mega-rich in '69, that's how you're taxed.

Misty tried the old line that all wealth is inherited. Not true. John Weicher, as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank, wrote in his February 13, 1997 Washington Post Op-Ed, "Most of the rich have earned their wealth... Looking at the Fortune 400, quite a few even of the very richest people came from a standing start, while others inherited a small business and turned it into a giant corporation." What's happening here is not that "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer." The numbers prove it.

I have made an executive decision as the owner and ultimate editor of this website that this table and these numbers stay on this website forever - or until next year's numbers come out. In order to get these facts, you have to see them each and every day. This story, along with a link to the IRS chart, will stay somewhere on the RushLimbaugh.com homepage so everyone can see and find these numbers at any time. It's crucial that people get this, so please, share it with a friend now!

[Orion]

Eventually, those that actually pay for this goverment will cut off their "free lunch."

Immigration demographics suggest otherwise. The only way the great unwashed are going to be "cut off" is for the economy to collapse. As long as the economy, especially the economy for the upper quartile, is humming along, no one has a vested interest in rocking the boat and cutting anyone off.

Make the 50,000,000 yuppies huddle in the fetal position, wondering where the mortgage payment is going to come from, and realizing their lifes' savings couldn't buy new tires for their Ford Extinction, that is a week away from repo, meanwhile listening to urbanites looting and destroying their neighborhood...

...you would make serious progress in cutting off the great unwashed from their gov't bennies.

Meanwhile, back to the Republican Ramp-up on Wall Street...

[fso301]

I'll read this later

[leadpenny]

1) Fica hasn't been included ~Koblenz

FICA is a scam, and if you are younger than 40 years old, you lost all of that money. ~Humble

I don't think it should either unless you are also going to include future benefits as well. This is, or should be separate from the general operating fund of the government, despite the present practice of "borrowing" from SS funds. ~meyer

Koblenz is right in raising the issue of FICA. Of course it's (SS) a scam but the subject of the thread is Which Wage Earners pay the taxes - not who receives, or may receive future benefits. Something like 75% of wage earners pay more in FICA than they do in other taxes. FICA is now. Benefits are on the other side of the ledger and another argument. What the Federal Government does with FICA, Medicare and Income Tax is irrelevant. People have this burden now.

To NOT include the mandatory FICA tax in the equation makes any discussion on Who Pays the Taxes a bogus one.

[BabsC]

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

So the harder I work to earn more, the more I am penalized. That is if the idea is that there is a finite "pie" and the more I work for the less someone else is left with.

Those that "value produce" and have good work ethics are expected to support and pay for those that don't. I think that's called "socialism" or "redistribution". I think that "-ism" has been tried and has failed.

[Hunble]

To NOT include the mandatory FICA tax in the equation makes any discussion on Who Pays the Taxes a bogus one.

Notice, no comment about the times I was personally homeless and almost starved to death.

Ok leadpenny, how old are you? Have you ever been taught the simple concept of compunded interest?

Did anyone explain to you, that if your current FICA tax was invested, by the age of 65, you would most likely retire with $1 MILLION in the bank?

Nope, you think that the current $280 a month is GOOD MONEY!

Cool, I love it.

[CurlyDave]

That so large a percentage of our population earns so little and pays little or no taxes is a real problem. What solution do you propose?

This situation would be easily corrected by requiring that one of three criteria be met in order to vote:

1. Current net taxpayer (taxes paid minus government assistance greater than zero)

2. Currently in the military

3. 10 consecutive years in any combination of 1 and 2 grants permanent right to vote.

Essentially, everyone who is a citizen has a right to be here, but only those who contribute to our society have a voice in the direction we take.

[Hunble]

Essentially, everyone who is a citizen has a right to be here, but only those who contribute to our society have a voice in the direction we take.

No problems with me on that concept.

Uh, it would cause a problem in Florida however.

[cherry]

not only that....but don't forget about the devastating Social Security tax..a tax that is phased out a little over $75 thou and just think ....all those millionaires and billionaires do not pay 8% of that income to the govt...

reality is this....when it all comes out in the wash....the tax burden on the working class with income taxes, SS taxes. property taxes etc etc and the fact that the average working still can not take advantage of the latest tax avoidence schemes offered up ....then I would say that the working class does indeed pay far more than they should be...

working poor...get very little in college help for their kids. are too rich for health care help.. ...they are caught between a rock and a hardspot...

[Stop Legal Plunder]

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.

The text of the Bible (1 Samuel Chapter 8), excerpted below in the English Standard Version, agrees with your point. The context is the Hebrews' rejection of God's prophet Samuel to rule over them in favor of a king "like all the other nations." Note especially how God considers it outrageous for the state to claim 10% of one's income in tax and how the people don't care. Some things don't change:

...All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel...and said to him...Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. 9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men [1] and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, 20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

[Hunble]

Nice try, but can you support your ideas with actual facts?

FICA is a loosing concept, so don't even attemp that one on me.

[GOPJ]

Bump for later.

[Hunble]

Ok, I will try to use baby talk.

FICA tax is around 12% of our earned income.

Now, if someone very rich was able to invest that same 12% for his future retirement, and it also earned above the current bank saving account....

Nobody but a fool would turn down that offer.

However, you have forgotten a tiny little detail that the Democraps were allowed to make law:

If you make more than X amount, no matter how much you have invested into your personal FICA account, you are no longer eligiable to retrieve that money.

[Hunble]

I will say this as simply as possile:

Twice in my life, I persponally almost starved to death because I made too much money.

Go cry at DU, you will not get any sympathy from this Freeper!

[Gilbo_3]

bump for later study

[Action-America]

Interestingly, the original IRS data from which Rush derived his numbers, was structured backwards, to make it more difficult to understand.  Instead of the top 1%, they had the bottom 99%.  Instead of the top 5%, they had the bottom 95% and so on.  The numbers are not nearly as telling that way.  I wonder why they did it that way.  Yeah, right!

I downloaded the IRS Data and built a spreadsheet, based upon the downloaded data (that is also included).  Using simple formulas, I restructured the data to reflect the top "x%"of each category, rather than the bottom.  The numbers come out to be the same as Rush's, but as a spreadsheet, you can do all kinds of corelations.  I will post it on the Action America web site by Thursday (10/24) noon CDT, for anyone who is interested.

 

[Samwise]

But there is no sense in using this information to argue with liberals. They won't allow themselves to be confused by the facts.

[listenhillary]

We should rip a page from the Democratic play book.

TAX THE POOR!

Anytime government wants to discourage behavior, they penalize those indulging in the behavior with taxes. What would be the harm? We've spent 6 trillion trying to eradicate the poor by handing them money. It has had zero success in eradicating poverty!

It DOES make sense!

[SeeRushToldU_So]

Rush said this was going to be a permanent addition to the web site. The message needs to be out that when the dims say "Tax cuts for the rich" the rich is defined as anyone making $53,000 per year !

I hardly call $53,000 per year rich.

[SeeRushToldU_So]

Rush is wrong about the percentages as well.

The figures were taken from the IRS website. Complain to them, like it would do any good.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

We're rich? This will come as a shock to my family...........