It's counterintuitive, but it is the historical fact


Good data historically here:


http://conceptualmath.org/philo/taxgrowth.htm

If you let the rich pay low taxes they just hoard their wealth. If you tax them at a reasonable level, that money gets put back into the economy, not into Cayman Islands tax shelters, hedge funds and derivatives. It is the middle class and poor who drive our economy, not the rich.

...put money back into their businesses rather than report higher income taxable at higher tax rates.

of all the wealth in the country.

Which would make the 70% tax percentage a steal of a deal.

Last edited Thu Oct 18, 2012, 07:05 AM - Edit history (3)

The average income of the top 1% is 771,000. The top 10% is much lower. The real division today is between the top .01 or .001% and the rest of us. There is a reason the right cites the top 5 or 10%. They do pay a lot of taxes, but a good number at the top pay a lower percentage than we do.

in this country. Far as I'm concerned they should pay all the taxes, or share the wealth a little more equally!

They should pay the same percentage of taxes as the amount of wealth they control in the country. Clearly they own a greater share than 70 per cent. Taxes will not be fair until theirs are raised.

and the rest of us are not paid enough.

Of course, your RW friend is telling half the story.

Ask him if he knows how much "wealth" is owned by the top 10%.

I can tell you that it's a tad more than 70%.

When you include this little part of the equation, it seems
logical and fair: 70% of the wealth / 70% of the taxes.

Plus, most of the 1% pay less in terms of % than the middle class.

He's practicing statistical slight-of-hand.

Does your RW friend make more than $250,000 per year?
If not, why does he carry their water instead of his own?

is that the top few percent decide how much money everyone makes, they are the ones who hold the line on raises for workers while they give themselves golden parachutes. They also want to set their own tax rates, basically they are destroying the middle class plain and simple.

This is for Federal Income Tax, tax year 2008:

I would like to give you the actual data tables... But I am doing this from my phone and can't get that from here. But this seems accurate ....


Share of the Bottom 50 Percent

In 2008, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers, ranked by income, paid an average tax rate of 2.59 percent. The median taxpayer reported an income of $33,048 on his tax return that year -- meaning that half of all filers reported income above that point and half reported income below it. All told, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers paid 2.7 percent of the total income tax revenue received in 2008. Conversely, the top 50 percent of taxpayers paid 97 percent of the tax burden in 2008.

The Top 10 Percent

In 2008, 10 percent of the taxpayers paid 69.94 percent of the federal taxes, and paid an average of 18.71 percent of their income in taxes. To qualify for this group, you would have had to have earned at least $113,799 for the year.

The Top 5 Percent

Five percent of the taxpayers paid 58 percent of the tax bill in 2008, with an average tax rate of 20.7 percent, according to the IRS. This group earned at least $159,619 for the year.

The Top 1 Percent

One percent of the population paid 38.02 percent of the tax burden in 2008, and reported an average tax rate of 23.27 percent.

Again this is Federal income tax only.

I sorta disaggregate the data here and show it historically back to 1986. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/169

Perhaps I should do another two historical tables showing
1. share of income by group and
2. share of total tax bill by group

But to me, some of those statistics are misleading. The top 1% share of income tax has perhaps gone up, but if you look at the rates historically, clearly they are getting huge tax cuts. Their average tax rate has gone down by 4% since the year 2000 alone. If their average income is about $900,000 (not including the top .1%) then they are getting a tax cut of about $37,600 a year.

Their tax cut from Bush is more money than 50% of the country makes for working.

They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

I just made that up, but your friend is also making hers up.

the % that they pay has slowly gone down in rhetoric mostly because of tax breaks they continue to get

From cbo...

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/Tax_liability_Shares.pdf

Example from the attached chart ... In 1979 top 10% paid 35.6% of federal income tax but 61% in 2007

and according to that, the to 25% of income earners pay 68% of all Federal taxes (not just income tax). Interestingly, according to THIS, the top 25% have a 67% share of adjusted gross income (figures per IRS). So the tax burden by share of income percentage appears perfectly fair and reasonable.

If you're adding in things like sales taxes, property taxes, state-level income taxes, excise taxes such as the tax for your car tags, etc. then the figure changes, no doubt.

Senior citizens on Social Security who've worked their whole lives, disabled war veterans on disability, the unemployed--they all pay taxes of some sort or another, too. If they wanted to buy a can of soup at the market, they're paying sales tax right there. If they own a home, there's a property tax on it, too.

The fact that your friend had to use a catch-all qualifier such as "all" is indicative that she either made up the figure or is passing on information from a known source of propaganda without questioning it.

Interesting study by the Urban Institute

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/social-security-medicare-benefits-over-lifetime.pdf

Havent read this closely but seems to imply that lots maybe most get back more in SS and Medicare benefits than paid in.

CAP allows high-income earners to KEEP MORE of their income.

BTW: Social Security isn't a personal bank account.

people pay in v. the benefits they receive.

High lifetime earners pay in more than they get -- even considering that they live longer than lower earners. It's a fact.

I *like* the cap, because it's what keeps SS from turning into 'welfare'.

You want high earners to pay more taxes, do it through the income tax. The cap is what has kept SS in existence for over 70 years.

The .1% are not paying for retirees on ss. The system is self funding. Oh and the working poor are paying FICA tax at a higher effective rate than the .1%.

get LESS than they paid into SS.

It's only couples with dependent or low-earning spouses who get more.

You're in for a world of hurt if you DON'T "get back more than you paid in."

Getting back more than you paid in is sort of the reason to invest in the first place instead of stuffing one's mattress, no?

Sounds like someone is trying mighty hard to cast a favorable light on the plutocracy.

Earned benefits. Those benefits do not come out of income tax revenue. Many others are working but not earning enough to pay income tax. They are not being supported by the 10%.

But what would your friend suggest, that a family with income of 20,000 a year should pay a higher income tax rate while a family with income of 2,000,000 a year pays a lower rate? That is what Romney is advocating. He would lower his income tax rate to near zero by eliminating entirely the income tax on capital gains and dividends. Does your friend think that is fair?

Then the top 10% are making way too much money. If income were more fairly distributed, people could make their own money.

20 years ago, a CEO/Owner would make about 40 times more than what the lowest employee made. Reasonable enough. Today they make 400 times more. (As per Sen. Jim Webb D VA) Ridiculous. And they have the nerve to complain about taxes. They have continuously lowered wages and benefits and in many cases outsourced jobs. And customers have to keep paying more and more for less product. They squeeze others into proverty then complain about them as if they weren't the cause of it. I hope there's a hot corner in hell waiting for all of them.

It truly sickens me that the poster boy for GREED could...I won't even say it....

What the Rich Pay in Taxes. According to the CBO, the top 1 percent of income earners paid 39 percent of federal individual income taxes in 2009, while earning 13 percent of the income. That is down from 2007, before President Obama was elected. In 2007, after 25 years of Reagan Republican tax policies, the top 1 percent paid 40 percent of federal individual income taxes — more than double the 17.6 percent share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent when President Reagan entered office in 1981.

The CBO also reports that:

•In 2009, the bottom 40 percent of income earners were paid cash equal to 10 percent of federal individual income taxes by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), net of any federal income taxes they paid.

• In that same year, the middle 20 percent of income earners — the true middle class — paid a net 2.7 percent of total federal individual income taxes, while earning 15 percent of before-tax income.

•And the top 20 percent of income earners — those earning more than $74,000 — paid 94 percent of federal individual income taxes, 85 percent more than the share of national income they earned.

Altogether the bottom 60 percent of income earners, which includes the middle class, paid zero percent of total federal individual income taxes as a group. Instead, as a group, they received net cash payments from the IRS.

A woman at work listens to Rush all the time. I told her he lies. She said "show me". I went to his web site he had some statistic like the one in the op. "Half the people pay 90% of the taxes." I thought it was a lie (this was a few years ago). I looked it up. It was true but what it did not say, is the top half had 84% of the income.

The story the ops fb friend is telling is a half truth.

These two graphics are going on my office door today.

So you could just as easily argue that the top 20% should pay almost 90% of the taxes.

Explain that if the country were reoriented so that the middle class received a higher share of the income, like we should, then the middle class would pay a higher share of the taxes. If the top 1% receives nearly half the share of income, then you are going to see that they pay close to half the taxes.

Your rightwing friend is actually illustrating a problem with income distribution in this country and trying to assert it means something about taxes. It doesnt mean anything about taxes.

That's a good one. It looks a little confusing at first, but the second table is the one you want to look at, the one one that is "Share of Individual Income Tax Liabilities." In that one, your friend is correct: the top 10% pay 72.7% of all federal individual income tax. But is that the only tax that the federal government collects? No, and these tables show that. For all federal taxes (your friend said "all taxes," which would include stuff like local sales taxes and such), the top 10% pay 55% of all federal taxes, and for federal excise taxes, it's about 25%. Actually, I'm not really sure how they can measure federal excise taxes because if you go into the 7-11 and buy a pack of cigarettes, how do they (the federal government) know whether you're Joe Schmoe who works at the factory or you're Bill Gates? You pay the same amount of money and there's no paper trail on that transaction. Same goes with, say, liquor sales, another federal excise tax. There are others, but you get the idea. Poor folks pay these taxes all the time. They're not "skating" on this stuff.

And then there's things like tariffs (I'm assuming that these aren't counted in excise taxes for the purposes of these charts). Who pays a tariff on some import? Ultimately, I suppose, the final consumer, but once again, how does the federal government know whether the person buying Indonesian widgets with tariffs is dirt poor or filthy rich? Obviously if Indonesian widgets cost a million dollars a piece, they know, but what if they're $5 a piece?



Anyway, the short answer is that your friend has become another tragic case of a small amount of knowledge being a dangerous thing. She has AN idea, but doesn't grasp the larger surrounding picture. Surprise! If you make a lot of income, you pay a lot of income tax! If you don't make much income, you don't pay much income tax. Staggering, I know. But you (the Royal You) get taxed a whole lot of other ways besides income.

Take this logic to its conclusion. If one guy had all the money, he'd be paying 100% of the taxes.

When taxes are more evenly distributed, that means incomes are, also.

The 70& claim is a true statement, but a false narrative.

Had to step away right after I posted. Just back now and will read through all the info.
DU rocks!

Just skimmed through everything. It's 9pm here in my part of Asia right now so it's hard to digest the numbers. But before I begin working tomorrow I'm going to dig in a bit.

I hate to impose on all of you, but does someone have handy a comparison chart of wealth distribution from the 70s or some time earlier than now?

Until tomorrow, THANK YOU!

Then explain that anyone on SS paid into the system their entire lives.

Don't try to argue her stupid point. Make her look bad by defining the 47% as something other than lazy liberals.

Went after Romney said it in private.

That said, this is religious belief.

And as long as they insist on keeping it that way, they WILL be paying taxes.

Does your friend know that just one family has more wealth than 40% of this country:

"Today the Walton family of Walmart own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America." - Bernie Sanders 7/22/12

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/31/bernie-s/sanders-says-walmart-heirs-own-more-wealth-bottom-/

When such a small percentage own so much of course they must pay more.

and property. And the Republicans like it like this because they think the rigged system in favor of the wealthy is because the wealthy fairly earned it. Idiots.

Both Republicans and Democrats only talk about one part of the equation, the part that supports their view of taxing the rich more or less.

I wish there was a fairly simple, unbiased presentation of all the relevant points but I haven't found a website like that yet.
Of course a truly valid presentation of the data would still be pretty complex and beyond what most people want to wade through.

Seems going back to the Clinton era rates is the most balanced, and simplest thing to do right now.
The economy was booming under those rates and that's the underlying purpose of the whole thing anyway.

I'd tell her it sounds like like they're actually a but under taxed since the top 10% holds 85% of the financial wealth, while the bottom 80% gets to split up a whopping 5%. If the rich assholes want us in the proletarian underclass to pat more taxes, the power is in their hands since they are the so called "job creators". If they get off the sacks of money they've raked in from paying historically low tax rates for the last decade and use it to create quality jobs with decent pay, guess what? We will be forced to pay more taxes since we are making more money. It really is that simple.

As it stands, what can I say, you can't get blood out of a turnip.

Cheap fuckers want 95% of all the wealth, LESS than 70% of all the taxes, don't want to pay their workers shit and then bitch because said workers ask for just a little teeny bit of security instead of recognized the vast majority of what little taxes they pay goes for for shit that actually help keep shoveling 95% of the world's wealth in their direction.

Damn fuckers.

I'm learning fast you can't be civil to the top 5% nor the idiots who fight the rest of us as if they have any hope in hell of ever being in the top 5%.

Sorry - I'm angry today.......

My friend is just too entrenched in her own mindset to be open to any other possibilities. She thinks the same of me.
She has now called me names and cut off the discussion.

I blame the media for this. Cable networks must be help accountable for the statements they make as "news." The future of America is, to a certain extent, at stake.

Thanks, again. I tried...

The IRS caps deductible executive compensation at $1 million per executive. If you want to pay the boss $10 million, $9 million have to be incentive stock options.

So we pay Fred $1M cash ($350,000 tax) and after he sells the stock he got from an option he exercised three years ago he has a $10 million gain ($1.5 million) for a total tax bill of $1.85 million.

Do we whine because Fred is in the class that makes 70% of the tax payments, or point out that the malcontent made $11 million last year and sent 16.8 percent of it to the feds?

in off shore accounts Not helping to pay their fair share for military, First Responders, and infra-struture.

Add up what America spends.
Divide tax payers into 5% groups according to wealth.
Figure out what percent of wealth each group owns using past data.
Divide what America owes by the percentage each group owns and you get what each group owes in taxes.
Now figure out who makes what in each group and they each pay their own share of the groups taxes.

Retirement accounts true value should be treated differently since that is really pay, perhaps based on life expectancy. Off shore accounts should be considered at double the face value.


I think this would curb wealth hoarding and encourage investment and worker pay.

But is it REALLY worth your time to refute what she's saying (since anything you tell her is likely "biased leftist bullshit" according to her anyway)?

in payroll, state and local taxes. They are more than carrying their own share. For example, someone who makes 30 million dollars and is paying 14% is paying more in dollars, but less of their income than someone making 47,000 and paying 28% which is more of their income.

spend all their money, and we pay property taxes (including as part of rent), sales taxes, and state and local taxes on income, along with social security, FICA, etc. It just passes through the 47% hands on the way to the top 10% bank accounts.

There was a great Will Rogers quote posted on DU not long ago:

"The money was all appropriated for the top in hopes it would trickle down to the needy.

Mr. Hoover didn't know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands."

She's simply repeating Romney's point, which is that they think that people who aren't currently paying income taxes should die. Veterans don't deserve to be taken care of by those of us who are young and employed? Retired people who worked all their lives and paid payroll taxes into social security and Medicare don't deserve those benefits now? We took their money and now we let them starve?

Your friend's point is the essence of Republican selfishness.

Income tax is NOT the only tax that gets paid. Income taxes, if I remember correctly, only account for 1/6 of all taxes. Virtually everyone, either directly, or indirectly pays taxes of some sort.



Everyone.


The overkill of figures in this thread, placed with the best of intentions, makes most peoples heads spin. (It does mine.*lol*) Keeping it simple, ESPECIALLY with teabagger types, is more likely to get through.

I'm not sure of the actual numbers, but the top do indeed pay more dollars. They also collect way more dollars from the economy. They benefit the most from the economy, and infrastructure, etc they should pay the most.

All that being said, when expressed as a percentage of income, they pay far, far less than the rest of us. They are less burdened by taxation of all kinds. The burden of taxes falls hardest on the poorest of us. Adam Smith knew this in the 1700's and was an advocate of progressive taxation.

Others have talked about trickle down not working and that higher rates for higher income really doesn't hurt the upper tier that much.

Any statistician will tell you - "Give me the numbers and tell me what you want them to say..."

Numbers can be used to support almost any conclusion you'd like to reach. I say that since the top 20% own almost 90% of the nations wealth it's only logical they would pay about that percent of the taxes. Even if you taxed the rest of us at 100% we could never come close to filling the nations coffers - we don't make enough income. It's statistically impossible ;-D

Improving the wages of lower income workers is the only thing that will actually change the percent of taxes the wealthy pay.

Try that one on your friend...