Subject: Re: Taxation and fairness
Bob and All Who Have Had it up to Here With Taxes.
When this tax "information" was posted on another list, I did not get into
it because it was taking us down a side road from what should have been the
central discussion.
Here's the thing. We tend to throw statistics in order to defend our
position, or to debunk the other persons position, not to explore solutions.
The current tax system in our nation is so filled with corrupted rules and
loopholes and even some Black Holes and Wormholes, that it simply does not
matter what the figures show. Who cares if the 1% are paying most of the
taxes, and half of the remaining 95% are paying nothing? While we're busy
trotting out a new set of statistics, and then some more for good measure,
nothing is changing. Except that the rich are getting richer and the poor
are getting poorer.
When some citizens are spending piles of money to employ buildings full of
lawyers and accountants to figure how to move billions of dollars away from
view, so as to avoid paying taxes, and at the same time controlling the tax
laws by buying the Souls of politicians, it's pretty ingenuous of them to
whine about what little they do pay, regardless of what percentage of the
total taxes.
And by the way, none of these poor Billionaires would trade places with one
of those slum dwellers who currently pay no taxes.
And don't talk to me about how the folks who don't pay taxes are actually
being paid to not work. This is the old bait and switch game. The 1% are
pointing the finger at the 45% who pay no taxes, and are crying out that
they are the problem for our nation's financial woes. The fact is that the
1% are not only hiding tons of money that could actually solve our nation's
financial needs, but the are also far bigger welfare recipients than the 45%
whom they accuse of "ripping off" the nation's wealth.
But why shouldn't the 1% believe that the 95% should support them? We've
been carrying them all along.
When the beehive becomes too full of drones, the worker bees kill them and
toss them out of the hive.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Hachey" <bhachey@verizon.net>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2013 4:51 AM
Subject: Taxation and fairness
Hi all,
Here is some very interesting data from the IRS that I got from another
list.
Frankly, I've believed for a long time that the wealthy don't pay their fair
share of taxes here in America, but the data below gives me at least some
pause.
How accurate do you all think it is? How would it compare to similar data
for, let's say 1965, 1975 or 1985?
While it's nice to quip that figures lie and lyers figure, it does not seem
quite so easy to dismiss the data below.
I'm thinking that maybe the wealthy are supposed to pay taxes as indicated
below, but that many of them find ways around paying the taxes. In other
words, the laws are in place to get a decent amount of revenue out of the
wealthy, but those laws are not being enforced?
Bob Hachey
Here is tax data taken directly from the IRS and reproduced by
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/top-1-of-american-taxpayers-pay-almost-as-m
uch-in-taxes-as-bottom-95-and-half-of-that-group-paid-nothing-in-2010
(Note: 2012 data show very similar patterns.)
The top 1% of US taxpayers pay almost as much in federal income taxes as the
entire bottom 95%, and half of that bottom group paid no taxes at all in
2010 Mark J. Perry | December 27, 2012, 11:37 am According to new IRS data,
the 1.35 million taxpayers that represent the highest-earning one percent of
the Americans who filed federal income tax returns in 2010 earned 18.9% of
the total gross income and paid 37.4% of all federal income taxes paid in
that year. In contrast, the 128.3 million taxpayers in the bottom 95% of
all U.S. taxpayers in 2010 earned 66.2% of gross income and that group paid
40.9% of all taxes paid. In other words, the top 1 percent (1.35 million) of
American taxpayers paid almost as much federal income tax in 2010 ($354.8
billion) as the entire bottom 95% of American tax filers ($388.4 billion),
see chart above. And it's that group of top income earners (with income
above $221,000 in 2010 to be in the top one percent)...
Further, there were more than 58 million Americans in 2010 who had tax
returns with a zero or negative tax liability, so about half of the bottom
95% of American "taxpayers" paid nothing or got a tax refund.
With those data in mind, consider Nolan Finley's column in the Detroit News
comparing paying for milk and paying for taxes, based on an analysis a
reader (corporate lawyer Jon Taub) provided:
If every U.S. taxpayer purchased a gallon of milk, each person would pay
$2.49, and the total cost would be 140.5 million times $2.49 - or $349
million.
Now let's assume the government treated milk like government services and
determined its price the same way it determines tax rates. The pricing would
change as follows:
When the bottom 40 percent of earners buy their milk, they won't pay a dime
for it. In fact, the government would give them $1 in reverse payments for
every gallon of milk they purchase. The total cost of providing one gallon
of milk to each person in this group would be $196.1 million.
The cost of providing milk to the remaining 60 percent of the taxpayers
would be $209.9 million, bringing the total cost burden of all taxpayers'
milk to $406 million.
Under our existing tax rates, instead of paying $2.49 a gallon, the top 1
percent of earners would pay 38 percent of the total milk burden or $109.81
for a gallon of milk.
More Tax Facts...
Who Pays the Most Income Tax?
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxandtheirs/a/whopaysmost.htm
Higher income earners pay the most, Treasury says By Robert Longley,
Feeling overtaxed? Under the U.S. income tax system, most of the taxes
collected are supposed to be paid by the people who make the most money...
that is exactly the way the system works, says the U.S. Treasury Department.
According to the Office of Tax Analysis, the U.S. individual income tax is
"highly progressive," with a small group of higher-income taxpayers paying
most of the individual income taxes each year.
....the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid
more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but
reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.
.The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income
taxes ... This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of
individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group's tax
share has grown faster than their income share.
.Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay
virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in
this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In
2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total.
Treasury Department analysts credit President Bush's tax cuts with shifting
a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income
taxpayers. In 2005, says the Treasury, when most of the tax cut provisions
are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit,
marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers
will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise.
.The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall
from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.
.The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from
32.3 percent to 33.7 percent.
.The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27
percent as compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1
percent.
Source: U.S. Treasury, Office of Tax Analysis
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