Posted on 01/07/2003 3:32:10 PM PST by Weimdog
Newest Data Show High-Income Taxpayers Earning and Paying More
Top 25 Percent Paid 84 Percent of Income Taxes; Top One Paid 37.4 Percent
According to preliminary data released by the Internal Revenue Service and a new Tax Foundation Special Report, the top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers earned more than two-thirds of the nation's income (67.3%) and paid more than five out of every six dollars collected by the federal income tax (84%) in 2000. There were 32 million tax returns in the top 25 percent, all with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $55,225.
The top one percent of U.S. taxpayers (annual income over $313,469) made 20.8 percent of the income earned in 2000 and paid 37.4 percent of the total federal individual income taxes collected that year. This fraction of the tax burden paid by the top one percent - well over a third of the total - is up from 25.1 percent ten years earlier in tax year 1990.
At the other end of the income spectrum, the bottom 50 percent of the nation's taxpayers earned only 13.0 percent of all income in 2000, but they paid an even smaller fraction of the federal individual income taxes collected - 3.9 percent.
The data come from Tax Foundation Special Report No. 118, titled, "Who Pays the Federal Individual Income Tax?" by economist David Hoffman.
"Americans at the upper end of the income scale continue to bear an increasing share of the total federal individual income tax burden," observed Hoffman. "In a progressive tax system like ours, economic growth inevitably results in a steady shifting of the tax burden up the income scale. Although the current economic slowdown did begin in 2000, the annual growth rate for that year was still 5 percent, so a higher percentage of tax collections came in from high earners."
As the table shows, the top five percent of income earners (adjusted gross income over $128,336) and the top 10 percent (adjusted gross income over $92,114) both pay a significantly greater portion of federal individual income taxes than they did a decade ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at taxfoundation.org ...
You scumbag. You exploiter of the downtrodden. You coldhearted plutocrat. I bet you just keep that '87 Toyota because it reminds you of the Regan years when you no doubt used the homeless as human footstools.
In Marin County California it aint squat...
Which raises the question: Isn't the so called progressive tax skewed?...In other words two people paying 30% in taxes that live in areas that have a two fold disparity in cost of living are not being taxed "equally". The guy living in the high rent district is really getting screwed...it would seem as if a geographic cost of living analysis is in order. How much power does your disposable income have?
My 70 cents won't even grease the skids in Marin...
Wait. I was told public school teachers were poor. Now you are telling me that they are rich?!
So don't live in Marin. Leave the high cost of living and move to a tropical island in the South Pacific where EVERYONE is POOR.
Meega, Nala Kweesta!
My guesses: about $20,000 to about $3,500
(the numbers could be even further separated by taking out the top 5% of each side, where the elite Democrats bring their numbers up significantly)
The point is that while the nation is basically split 50-50, those who are paying far less into the system and getting far money more out of the system (through transfer payments, which should also be enumerated) are demanding that even more be sent their way, and even less taken from them... while taking even more from those evil, rich Republicans, to make sure the budget is balanced, and the deficit decreases.
We, in the United States of America, are not supposed to have royalty.
Which your quip dismisses...the term rich is relative geographically...
We are going to be innundated with tables and charts that describe anyone making 96k is rich...
While you, and everyone else views this, keep in mind that branding people via their US dollar income as one type of rich or another...is dismissing a rather poignent fact.
98k <> 98k
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