Tax burden

[JaJae]

Taxes and Income - WSJ.com

Every Democrat running for President wants to raise taxes on "the rich," but they will have to do something miraculous to outtax President Bush. Based on the latest available tax data, no Administration in modern history has done more to pry tax revenue from the wealthy.

Last week the Congressional Budget Office joined the IRS in releasing tax numbers for 2005, and part of the news is that the richest 1% paid about 39% of all income taxes that year. The richest 5% paid a tad less than 60%, and the richest 10% paid 70%. These tax shares are all up substantially since 1990, and even somewhat since 2000. Meanwhile, Americans with an income below the median -- half of all households -- paid a mere 3% of all income taxes in 2005. The richest 1.3 million tax-filers -- those Americans with adjusted gross incomes of more than $365,000 in 2005 -- paid more income tax than all of the 66 million American tax filers below the median in income. Ten times more.

The media and the Democratic candidates in particular have been feeding us information regarding the tax burden of America that simply isn't true. Under Bush's tax plan the wealthy pay more than they did under the previous two administrations. But that's not the story the media tells us, even though the concrete data is right here for us all to see.

It's a shame there isn't more transparency on the economy.

[6SpeedTA95]

This is similar data to what I've posted in the past. Usually all you hear are incoherent ridiculous excuses for reasons to raise taxes.

Fact is the tax burden in dollars has gone down across the board. The rich pay more as a % than do the rest of earners in this country, end of story.

[7960]

".........but, but, BUT THE POOR SHOULDN'T *HAVE* TO PAY TAXES!!! THEY'RE POOR!!!!"

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten
comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like
this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with
the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost
of your daily meal by $20." Dinner for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first
four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the
other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so
that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that
from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up
being paid to eat their meal.

So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's
bill by roughly the same amount, and! he proceeded to work out the amounts each
should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat
for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their
savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to
the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got
only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything
at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down
and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered
something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even
half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax
system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a
tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just
may not show up anymore.

[northhunter]

And yet it will still be way to difficult for some to understand. Thanks for the great post though.

[WickedLou9]

Blah blah blah.
The top 10% pay 70% of the taxes because they control most of the wealth in the country. 70% is probably right, I bet the top 10% of the country controls 70% or more of the wealth. They should probably pay more.
It's hard to find current numbers but as of 2004, the top 20% controlled 85% of all the wealth in the country.


Wealth Distribution

Also the disparity between wealth and income.


The top 5% are not taxed on the wealth that they have, they are taxed on income. They aren't paying for what they have.

[bheld]

It's because they're making more and more money! This is ridiculous and a complete insult to anybody with a shred of intelligence. Because these people are extracting more and more money from the working poor and middle class they deserve a break on taxes? You've got to be kidding me.

Their share of taxes has gone up because the middle class and lower class have stagnated since the Reagan years.

[Ardentfrost]

The amount of money in a system isn't static. Them doing better for themselves does not mean they are doing so by taking money away from those less fortunate. That is a completely silly argument.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

The amount of money in a system isn't static. Them doing better for themselves does not mean they are doing so by taking money away from those less fortunate. That is a completely silly argument.

No, but when there are fewer and fewer people controlling more and more of the total wealth in the country you have to admit that the system is somewhat unbalanced.

[bheld]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

The amount of money in a system isn't static. Them doing better for themselves does not mean they are doing so by taking money away from those less fortunate. That is a completely silly argument.

Silly argument? The amount of money in the "system" is irrelevant when you're talking about shares. Your position is the one that isn't grounded in the real world, not mine. Look at the numbers. You can't theorize your way out reality.

[Thorgrim]

the media is completely bias towards corporations, I can't believe you really think there is some anti-rich/anti-corporate agenda in the MSM...

Unless a reporter get's something amazingly fascinating, her conservative editor is going to tell her to do another write-up on whatever white girl has gone missing

And Democratic candidates? What are they "misinforming" us on...?

To rich people, the "tax burden" is deciding who is going to do their taxes this year, as they sit in their yacht and watch the the sun set

For regular people, it's deciding on crucial itemizing details and planning your entire year around what you can do to get by...and for many of us here who come from or are currently in above average situations, it's what we can do to get by and have a few getaways and be able to take your SO to a fine restaurant now and again

it's not a fair system, which is why we are going to reset the tax cuts on those making over $250,000 a year to move towards balancing the budget, and get more services or tax cuts to regular americans, not the privileged few

You know what amazes me, is that when people help the poor, it's because they live miserable lives and no one else will help them

Yet there are some americans, I have no idea who got a hold of them...that see the ultra-wealthy with their huge bonuses and severences in the millions, spending time at snotty clubs that anyone can buy their way into...these people, protected by an army of lobbyists, lawyers, etc...already have bought and paid for all the help anyone could ever want

Yet a small army of middle class people rush to defend the rich as if they were some insular and discrete minority with no rights, "oh you're totally misjudging them, if you'd just hear out reason!" as if they don't have the means to defend themselves if they ever thought it was worth it

They are incredibly amused and I knew more than a few Ivy families who thought it was hysterical that working class Americans were vigorously fighting for Bush's tax cuts to give them even more money

They agree on one thing: giving money to right-wing think tanks is one of the best investments they ever made

[bheld]

Originally Posted by 7960

".........but, but, BUT THE POOR SHOULDN'T *HAVE* TO PAY TAXES!!! THEY'RE POOR!!!!"

Your posts have really fallen off lately.

[Ardentfrost]

The graphs only show that decreases in taxes affect the wealthy more than the less wealthy, which makes sense since taxes are a %.

What, in your "reality," are you seeing differently? Does that not make sense to you? There will always be a wealthy group of people in any non-wealth-distributed system. If you're promoting the redistribution of wealth, then I think you might be crazy because that's been shown time and time again to not work.

Basically, from an economic POV, it doesn't matter WHO has a lot of money and who doesn't as long as overall wealth increases, which it does in America (even after our inflating dollar). You can argue that those on welfare can't afford anything and whatever else, but that's not the fault of the economy, but of the government trying to provide them with more. From a government POV, of course they're going to take more from the wealthy, which they do. No one argues with that aspect. But those of us who are for lower government spending and lower taxes (in response to the lower government spending, not just a lower tax willy nilly) aren't saying we want more money for the wealthy, we want more money for EVERYONE.

[7960]

Originally Posted by bheld

Your posts have really fallen off lately.

I decided to cut through all the wordiness and just get straight to the issue.

"..........BUT THEY'RE POOR! And those rich meanies take all their money!!" is the crux of the issue. Next time I'll say it in two paragraphs and a chart. Apparently you like reading picture books.

[7960]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

Basically, from an economic POV, it doesn't matter WHO has a lot of money and who doesn't as long as overall wealth increases, which it does in America (even after our inflating dollar).

:werdupyo:

Again, crux of the issue. People are saying the poor are getting poorer by comparing them to the rich. That's crap. It doesn't matter if Bill Gates can buy 1000 Lamborghinis or 10,000 or 100,000, what matters is if I can buy more with my check this year compared to last year. And I can.

[bheld]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

The graphs only show that decreases in taxes affect the wealthy more than the less wealthy, which makes sense since taxes are a %.

What, in your "reality," are you seeing differently? Does that not make sense to you? There will always be a wealthy group of people in any non-wealth-distributed system. If you're promoting the redistribution of wealth, then I think you might be crazy because that's been shown time and time again to not work.

I never said anything of the sort.

Basically, from an economic POV, it doesn't matter WHO has a lot of money and who doesn't as long as overall wealth increases, which it does in America (even after our inflating dollar). You can argue that those on welfare can't afford anything and whatever else, but that's not the fault of the economy, but of the government trying to provide them with more. From a government POV, of course they're going to take more from the wealthy, which they do. No one argues with that aspect. But those of us who are for lower government spending and lower taxes (in response to the lower government spending, not just a lower tax willy nilly) aren't saying we want more money for the wealthy, we want more money for EVERYONE.

This whole section is nonsense. Here are the facts. More and more wealth is being concentrated in fewer hands. The middle class and lower class has record levels of debt that is constantly increasing and, concurrently, purchasing power is being eaten away as wages are not keeping up with inflation. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this isn't sustainable when you have an economy that is driven by consumer spending. Consumer spending accounts for 70% of our GDP and if there's nothing to spend, we're in trouble.

You can call it whatever you want. I guess I'm a communist for wanting to avoid more concentration of money and power than we already have in this country.

[bheld]

Originally Posted by 7960

I decided to cut through all the wordiness and just get straight to the issue.

"..........BUT THEY'RE POOR! And those rich meanies take all their money!!" is the crux of the issue. Next time I'll say it in two paragraphs and a chart. Apparently you like reading picture books.

You're condescending to me after posting a hackneyed right-wing email forward for simpletons?

[bheld]

Originally Posted by 7960

:werdupyo:

Again, crux of the issue. People are saying the poor are getting poorer by comparing them to the rich. That's crap. It doesn't matter if Bill Gates can buy 1000 Lamborghinis or 10,000 or 100,000, what matters is if I can buy more with my check this year compared to last year. And I can.

Actually, what matters more is if everybody else can buy more with their check this year. Your ego is showing.

[7960]

Originally Posted by bheld

Here are the facts. More and more wealth is being concentrated in fewer hands.

So?

The middle class and lower class has record levels of debt that is constantly increasing

Are you saying lower/middle class debt is a function of how much wealth the rich have?

and, concurrently, purchasing power is being eaten away as wages are not keeping up with inflation.

If inflation-adjusted wages was up 1% does that mean wages are not keeping up with inflation?

Real wages are growing slowly - Jan. 30, 2006

You can call it whatever you want. I guess I'm a communist for wanting to avoid more concentration of money and power than we already have in this country.

So.................what? You want to take money from the rich and give it to the poor? You want to limit how much wealth one person can acquire?

What's your plan?

[7960]

Originally Posted by bheld

You're condescending to me after posting a hackneyed right-wing email forward for simpletons?

I was posting to my target audience

[bheld]

The bottom line is that if you conservatives are going to give credence to this story, you have no business disputing the logical extension which is that there has been no time in our country's history in which the wealthy have had more.