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Your Taxes At Work: All You Need To Know About Who Pays What Taxes In The US
Presented with little comment - since the charts speak for themselves. From Buffett to a Burger-flipper, everyone has a view - driven in large part by their anchoring bias of who they choose to listen to. The graphics below will help, we hope, to clarify that thinking - whether you are the 1%, 47%, or 99%...
The Share Of Adjusted Gross Income Earned through time (by income bracket)
The Share Of Federal Income Taxes Paid through time (by income bracket)
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... on second thought, I'm not gonna argue with you. Enjoy paying your taxes.
It is my understanding that the income tax was created for the primary reason of providing the government a means to pay real interest on the magical poof money created by the federal reserve (whose charter was also unconstitutionally enacted in 1913). In other words, income taxes stolen from your labor are the primary means by which the fed banksters make profit on the 'loans' they make to our illustrious 'leaders' in gubment. Since those 'leaders' have no actual money to pay interest, they simply devised a convenient way to STEAL it from you.
Greatest scam in the history of modern man.
Indeed. Historically fiat is often introduced via taxes. Since you cannot expect people to willingly abandon solid currency, you encourage them (at a barrel of a gun) by denominating taxes in something else they'd typically refuse. The interest on debt ensures consistent flow of paper away from the currency issuers and a flow of assets in the opposite direction. Initialy it works out of the government too, as just like the bank, they end up collecting profit by pushing pencils, but over time, as the system runs dry, they find themselves empty handed. Even the small banks in charge of credit distrubution and collection are cut off from the credit flow. All that remains is the struggle between the last set of asset producers and the last central bank excreting paper.
I draw parallels with German occupation of Warsaw. The Nazi temporarily empowered some Jews to police the Ghetto. When enough people were escorted off to concentration camps, the "officers" themselves were disposed of.
Small banks and governments think they're earning favors from the Fed by enforcing collections. In the end they discover themselves on the same train, heading to the very same "recreational facility".
Payroll taxes are regressive. And they ARE taxes. This whole set up sux. This country worked fine without an income tax and when one was finally installed it was for the purpose of taxing monopolies (back when utilities were private). As in, there was a method to the madness (effectively to counteract "rent seeking behavior"). This current bracket crazy sociel microengineering nonsense needs to go. The costs of administration alone screw the pooch.
Ah yes, back in the horse and buggy days. Combining your comments of a regressive tax (payroll and, by the way ALL OTHER TAXES) with the ONLY progressive tax there is, income tax, confuses the issue. What is needed is to take away all the regressive taxes and make all taxes progressive.
What is needed is to reduce the size of government by 90%. Then there would be excess revenue available to pay of public debt. Or give tax cuts to taxpayers. As long as government is allowed to expand, there will never be enough revenue.
In addition, next time politicians mention affordable housing, hand'em hard hats and shovels. Kick'em the fuck out of the office and let'em do real work... though, come to think of it, I wouldn't wanna live in any house built a politician. We ought to force'em to occupy those structurally sound dwellings! That in itself would guarantee reduction of the government by 99% within the first year.
"politicians mention affordable housing, hand'em hard hats and shovels...come to think of it, I wouldn't wanna live in any house built a politician"
Let them live in the houses they build, instead of creating laws that don't apply them, but apply to the rest of the population. Seems like appropriate justice to me.
Payroll taxes are regressive. And they ARE taxes.
Forgive me, but you ARE a total fool. They aren't taxes, they are penalties. ;-)
And God are they penalties.
In all seriousness, with the government borrowing some 40% of every dollar it spends, and with The Bernank printing 75% of those, who can debate taxes with a straight face. Why not just print all of the government revenue?
Correct. Stop all federal government taxes and just print. They won't because the pain in inflation would cause and immeduate uprising. Much better to slowly drain away the wealth little by fucking little. Not too much, just enough and then all at once.
The top tax rate should be 90% like it was from 1940 - 1980
http://irregulartimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/topmarginaltaxrate1...
The top marginal rate means nothing. It's the effective tax rate that counts. When the top marginal rate was 90% you could right off anything and everything, credit cards... Booze... Hookers..
Bullshit! There are more loopholes now than there were back then. The uber-rich keep getting fucking richer while everyone else goes down the toilet. It will be their turn very soon to reap the whirlwind.
You need to do a little research ,because you could deduct a hell of a lot more back then than you can now. Not to mention there were cool investments like bearer bonds. This country has always been run by it's owners. Do you really believe that they are going to forfeit 90% of their income? Just another illusion for the sheep.
Reagan closed loopholes by leaps and bounds. He also reset the the way unemployment was figured. Started the ball rolling.
Yes, and that 90% rate applied to almost no one. Indexed to inflation, that rate would hit only those who make more then $3.5 million annually today.
It will raise no revenue -- but it is not really about revenue. It's about punishment, isn't it?
I think it is more about creating a perception, an enemy if you will. What better way to mobilize people than to create for them a unifying enemy - "the 1%". Yes all of our ills are caused by this "1%"! Get the pitchforks, get the torches and lets get them!
What did they call the enemy in Russia cicra 1917?
OECD average doesn't mean anything. The average of Arnold Schwarzenegger's height and Danny DeVito's height is meaningless. Let's see the median OECD, the one in the middle.
Germany has higher corporate tax rates than Ireland or Greece, but who produces and exports competitive products and who not? Who is currently bailing out whom?
As one can see prosperity has little to do with tax rates:
Belgium 33,99 %
Bulgaria 10 %
Denmark 25 %
Germany 29,83 %
Estonia 21 %
Finland 26 %
France 34,43 %
Greece 25 %
Ireland 12,5 %
Italy 31,4 %
Latvia 15 %
Lithiania 15 %
Luxemburg 29,63 %
Malta 35 %
Netherlands 25,5 %
Austria 25 %
Poland 19 %
Portugal 26,5 %
Rumania 16 %
Sweden 28 %
Slowakia 19 %
Slowania 22 %
Spain 30 %
Czech Republic 21 %
Hungary 21,28 %
GB 28 %
Cyprus 10 %
Norway 28 %
Switzerland 20,65 %
Japan 30 %
Canada 21,28 %
USA 39,63 %
Care to post effective rates?
Yowser fight club...... you're gonna take some grief over this one.
the problem is not "taxes"
THE FUCKING PROBLEM IS THE UNCONTROLLED SPENDING BY POLITICIANS......
it matters NOTHING what the tax rates have been, are, or will be.....
when you have a band if thugs and thieves who spend it all.... and then they come back for more
ask the questions....
what have you done with the money we gave you thus far ?
how have you manage the money we entrusted you with?
until they answer those questions in a truthful way
it is time to REVOLT and pay NOTHING.
FUCK THE POLITICIANS, FUCK THE BUREAUCRATS, AND WHILE I AM AT IT.... FUCK THE UNIONS TOO.
+1.
Assuming that with tax hikes the budget could be balanced. But since the gov't is receiving more revenue, Politicians will do what they do best: INCREASE SPENDING! Raising taxes without a budget cap is pointless since the spending will soar causing a permanent deficit. Thats how we got in this mess in the first place!
One Graph Missed; the MPC or underground tax (countertrade, barter, economy tax rate.)
ie: how much more gnp would be if Hayek tax rate was 17% max income; and we had a flat rate tax system.
If I own an S-Corp that took a loss on the year, but gave 32 people a decent W-2, did I pay taxes? Unfortunately, this question out of the park for about 47% of us.
How many Corps do you know that employ people out of the kindness of their corporate hearts?
There is no such a thing as "giving work to someone", except maybe at the level of some worthless public servants or the boss' inept nephew kind of people: people work for their salary.
You appently have never owned or run a small business, or spent much time with people who do own or run small businesses. Do you by chance work at or for 1600 Penn. Ave., NW?
How much consideration should be given to projections made 40+ years into the future anyways? We're continuously shown how grossly inaccurate these projections have been. 2055... give me a break. Taxes as a percent of GDP could be 40% just as much as they could be 3%. Lets get through 2015 first shall we.
Tax Presidential parties at 200%. With this klown, that will close the deficit.
From the Heritage Foundation: "Central to the American idea is the notion that individual dignity necessarily includes the freedom to work hard, be creative and get ahead in life without interference by the state. As such, entrepreneurship has historically been seen in America as a fundamental expression of the human spirit."
Hmm. And yet literally 5 of the top 10 richest people in America gained their great wealth by ... inheriting it from their parents. Dynastic wealth that is passed on from generation to generation is not the American Dream -- it is how aristocracies have worked throughout human history. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation are thinly veiled apologists for this fact, hiding behind a supposed agenda of freedom to disguise their defense of oligarchy and aristrocacy.
So the American Dream is the government taking your success after you die? Most entrepreneurs work hard and sacrifice for the benefit their family, not for the government to have more money to redistribute or flush down the drain on public equity. I don't see what you are getting at.
I am getting at a desire for honesty in the debate. Like it or not (some people like it), wealth in America is concentrating in fewer and fewer hands because there are numerous mechanisms available to the wealthy to avoid virtually any tax. Once wealth is obtained, it is easy to keep because capital gains are taxed at very low rates and mechanisms like trusts can avoid estate tax treatment completely. If you want to openly support this brand of generational aristrocracy because someone in the history of a wealthy American family was wildly successful, that's up to you. But groups like the Heritage Foundation hide behind buzz words like the "productive class" and the "job producers," when in fact they primarily exist to protect those who long ago stopped creating jobs or doing anything productive other than perhaps managing their dynastic wealth.
You're talking about wealth like it is a limited resource. It's not. Obtaining and passing on wealth to my family is why I am thinking 24 hours a day of a new business idea. That is the American Dream to me and I have absolutely zero resentment for anyone that inherited wealth or has it better than me.
If I knew that the government would take my life's work after I am gone then I wouldn't care about starting my own business anymore. I thought communism already proved that.
I do like reading your comments so don't rip me to hard.
Wealth is a limited resource if a few people control so much of it that they are able to stifle opportunities for others, which is happening in this country. The middle class is getting poorer. You and I agree that the average person should leave their spoils to their families. I'm talking about dynastic wealth, e.g., tens of millions and up that go from generation to generation and sit in vaults and trusts. 400 people in this country have more wealth than one half of the population combined. Those are the people I am focused on.
You don't get it. It is the government that protects the wealthy and uses them to maintain power. The Federal government has created rules that stifle wealth creation, stifles the ability to rise from one class to the next for people to make and save wealth. it is the enemy to upward mobility because those wealthy people you talk about love the idea of a 50% capp gains rate, as long as they pay for their own little loophole and only you and I pay it.
It is government power that keeps them wealthy. Create a simple, level tax playing field and those wealthy will change over many times over a few generations. Some will blow it, some will grow it and others will join them. That's the American Dream, where government is fair but that isn't what we have and it creates the very bullshit you are talking about not the other way around.
More government is the fucking problem.
I get your point, and nowhere have I ever advocated for more government in the abstract. More regulation over oligarchs, less overall government (e.g., no police state, smaller MIC, much simpler tax code, real restrictions on money in campaigning) is the solution I promote for many of our ills. But I do not agree that it is healthy for a society to have generational wealth measured in the billions of dollars. Anyone with that much wealth has the power to corrupt the system -- whether it is elected government or otherwise -- in order to retain their power and wealth and write the rules in their favor. Ask history. I also see no benefit to society as a whole in having a few hundred people around who own more than 1/2 of the society combined. Yet that has been the model for all of human history.
Government is a tool for redistributing wealth.
You're just upset because the rich are using the tool rather than the non-rich.
Either of those two uses would be wrong because it involves taking someone else's property.
Of course, the problem is that ANIMALS don't have a concept of another's property. That concept is limited to a small number of humans.
i have to agree with letthemeatrand here. If there is concentration of wealth that lead to an aristrocratic class, eventually there will be a revolution of the masses (like the french revolution). Wealth is getting more and more concentrated into fewer hands. This is a fact that no one disputes. Given that such massive concentration of wealth exists, I am assuming that the death tax amount is so tiny because a lot of the wealth is saved from taxes with trust funds. These loopholes need to be closed. The other problem with increasing govt revenue is that it might start more wars and add more departments like TSA. Long term I dont think the wealth concentration as it exists now can escape a revolution unless its more normalized in a few generations.
Entrepreneurs might work hard for the benefit of their family but they count on the government for safe transfer of wealth after they die. Masses born into poverty would certainly not be incentivized to provide this right through the goverment. Private property is a right a lot of people think is "just". It is no more "just" that the justice of might is right and in this case the might being provided by the goverment enforcing property rights.
No PRIVATE PROPERTY, No PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT.
"And yet literally 5 of the top 10 richest people in America gained their great wealth by ... inheriting it from their parents."
And from selling or providing goods and services to the gov't or to the people using gov't programs or funding!
I'm calling BS on that claim of 5 of the 10. There are three Walton's ont he list. Big deal. First generation wealth.
I assume the other reference is to the two Koch brothers but they really built the company into the financail giant it is, not inherited it.
The rest? Gates, fucktard Buffett, Ellison, Soros and Sheldon Adelson.
ZH is now as shill for the Heritage Foundation?
why are payroll taxes, which i assume includes SSI, counted as part of Fed Budeget Revs?
Prior to 1968, revenues that were earmarked for specific expenses (i.e. gas taxes for the Highway Trust Fund or payroll taxes for SS) had a separate budget. It changed when Lyndon Johnson "unified" the federal budget in 1968. He did this to make the federal deficit look smaller than it really was and to hide how much he was spending on the Viet Nam War.
Wow the highest corporate tax rate in the world brought in $180 billion, supposedly 40%.
Something doesn't add up because 40% of Apple's revenue alone would be greater than that sum. Aren't corporate profits hitting records? 40% of record profits adds up to $180 billion?
Of course only profits are taxed, and you'll be hard pressed to find any "profits" on any corporate tax form.
Let's see if I can get into the mindset necessary to believe all this....
"Obviously, lowering the corporate tax rate would result in Apple doing more business domestically, and all that added local-business would dramatically increase the corporate taxes they pay."
How's that sound? Can I get a six-figure job at a think-tank now?
How to start with wading through this propaganda fest.
First, the usual emphasis on income taxes, which are progressive and make the case for the elites paying too much, and no chart showing the breakdown for who pays payroll taxes. The usual spin i have come to expect from ZH.
Then you have the "US has Highest Corporate Tax Rate", which you qualify by saying US rates have been "consistently higher than the average of industrial nations" (so which is it?), which makes no mention of the effective tax rate, after all the subsidies and loopholes, which was 12.1% in 2011. Why bother with facts when spin works so much better?
I'll give you the new taxes associated with Obamacare, but it would be more honest that it effects investment income of those with AGI over $200,000 ($250,000 joint return), so I doubt it will stifle investment.
The chart that shows 2000 as having the "highest tax burden in history" would look a little different if it went back to the 1950s, when the top rate was over 90%. Very convenient time frame.
As far as tax revenues as a percentage of GDP, that has averaged 19% over the past 60 years, but the Bush tax cuts have brought that down to an average of 15% over the last ten years, and its under 15% now. This has an obvious impact on the deficit, and wishful thinking about the recovery will not bring the average back up to normal.
Lastly, the "flat tax" sounds highly regressive and will result in more middle class slipping down to lower class.
The flat tax sounds pretty fair to me. Shouldn't the middle class pay their fair share or ANY share for that matter? Even Joe Biden has said that everyone should pay something. YOU want big government. YOU pay for it.
Why don't we just reduce ....the fucking GOVERNMENT? Then everybody will be happy!
The 47% would not be happy. Nor would any politician trying to buy votes with public funds. In other words, a great idea that will never come to be.
Why stop at Federal Taxes? Why not add in Social Security, Medicare, disability, state tax, sales tax, fees, assessments, property tax, local taxes etc. And while you are tallying taxes put in the 0.001%. Don't lump the 1% or 5% together. Even better, put in the taxes as a percentage of disposable income. That makes the poor and middle class look like they're getting shafted.
USA! USA! USA!
Goddamn inflation! It was one USA just yesterday!
TAX RELIGION.
Start with the "holy rollers."
The biggest tax avoidance scheme of all time - religion.
Churches, church properties, church holdings, church inanimate wealth, etc.
Have religions do an accounting of expenditures - incarceration for lying!
I'd rather incarcerate politicians who lie. We already know that they cheat and steal. I'd suggest your animus against organized religions is too narrow-minded. Let's just tax everyone who's stupid. All 300+ million of us in the US.
Do you know how many charitable services religious organizations provide each year? Tyler please bring up the chart.
At one time in America, religious organizations provided 100% of the charitable services for the poor and desperate, but that has declined as liberals worked to replace religion of God with religion of Government.
Now, the left wing are the "holy rollers". Should they pay more for all of the government handouts that they worship? I'm in.
Churches and religious charitable organizations have grown increasingly reluctant to get involved in so many areas of American life, where charity is needed badly: public schools, for example. Religion has been effectively destroyed as a right of free speech in public schools (based on a gross misinterpretation of the "Congress shall pass no law" portion of the Constitution. I suspect that many religious folk would welcome the chance to help feed hungry children through school lunches. Instead, the United States has the Department of Education and the school lunch program.
I'm willing to grant Churches tax amnesty if they begin practicing live weekly crucifixions of corrupt politicians. That would get me into the Church in a jiffy! I'd even wear a cross... hell, I'd wear 10 of them to every town hall meeting just as a reminder to anyone running for public office!
Amen!
Actually you have an excellent point. If there truly is to be a separation of Church and State then the Church should pay taxes on its income, and property tax on its real assets. That makes sense. It is the same as double taxation on dividends. We pay taxes on income, contribute to the Church and the Church pays taxes on the income even though I have already deducted the donation to the Church for my own taxes. The United States Government.t should in no way subsidize religion. Free of tax is absolutely a subsidy.
Top 1% of income earners (hyper productive people) and top 1% of wealth holders are not the same. You groveling masses of putrid shit never bother to differentiate the two.
Ever wonder why the hyper wealthy say income taxes need to be raised? Because they use the income tax as a moat to keep hard working people out of the ranks of the "rich". It's the same reason they push for an inheritance tax.
The rich in this country push for government deficits so that they can loan the government money so they can use the bonds to lever off of. Then the government "invests" the money in projects, wars, or the military-industrial complex that they're apart of. If you don't see government spending as anything other than a major rip-off, you're a naive little shit.
"Rich" is a blanket statement and a generalization. No 2 rich people are alike in terms of their productivity and output. But this is taxes we're talking about!
When it comes to taxes, "rich" simply means "richer than me". Someone living off social assistance may call everyone making above $20K rich, despite the fact those are the very people that pay him or her to sit on his or her ass.
Middle class hates the rich, yet has no problem with the rich, if they happen to migrate into the higher income bracket. Having fallen lower, they envy people who managed to hold on. They begin fighting the crowd they once belonged to.
People are one crazy bunch I must tell you.
That's why it is important to protect individual rights and the right to property. It's quite simple - if something is yours, no one has the right to deprive you of that property, be he a member of majority, minority, aristocracy, bureaucracy or Jesus H. Christ himself.
Your post is right on. But I think if holy water was cast upon you, your head would spin and you would tell me that my mother sews socks that smell.
Nah.
"Rich" means your standard of living can't be affected by whether you're working or not working.
There are VERY FEW rich. They make sure of it.
Among the "rich" you speak of, taxes are a punishment for being too poor (or greedy) to hire a good accountant.
Also, something else crossed my mind in this discussion. The top 1% - we'll always have'em. That's a mathematical certainty... unless we end up with less than a hundred people in existence.
Taxes aren't a punishment. In a civil society, they're the means of paying for the government's protection that the rich need from the rabble.
Of course, if we don't WANT a civil society, and I suspect we don't, there's no need at all for taxes. The rich can hire their own armies, build castles, drive bulletproof vehicles in convoys, etc, so that the rest of the country can't kidnap/rob/murder them.
That's clearly the direction we're going here in the US. In a few decades, it should be impossible to tell the difference between the US and Mexico.
Laws are made to protect lawmakers form law abiding citizens. By the same token, taxes exist to enrich the tax collector at the expense of the taxpayer. If anything good ever comes out of redistribution it's by a mere fluke.
NASA - one of our proudest national achievements was an accidential byproduct of a taxpayer supported arms race during the Cold War. It is amazing to watch what we are able to achieve collectively out of pure and sinceer desire to kill eachother and blow shit up!
Russia's space race was good fun too. They launched the first man into space and within a 6 month period detonated the world's most powerful atomic bomb. Didn't take long for everyone else to put the 2 together. Russia demonstrated that it could deliver payloads anywhere around the globe and hinted at what the payload might have been.
... and I dreamt of becoming an astronauts when I was little. Silly me!
You make an excellent point especially where bailed out warren buffoon is concerned.
The truly wealthy heartily endorse all tax increases just as long as such increases leave their own special deductions intact.
Warren Buffet Likes Estate Taxes
A plea to return to "Reaganomics" fantasies. This is a sorry precedent to set at this point in the year, Tyler.
Still, if you're going to print policy propaganda as if it's "news," far better to suck up on the side of the rich folks. A few hundred billionaires are MUCH more likely to make it worth your while than a few hundred million paupers ever could.
Same way our politicians operate, and they're doing damn well for themselves.
"Go big or go home."
1/You forgot to add this chart from the conservative Tax Fundation.
where do the 47% live....... in the Red state. no surprise. http://taxfoundation.org/article/states-vary-widely-number-tax-filers-no-income-tax-liability
2/Tax decrease doesnt mean higher growth. We have seen that with the Bush tax cut.
the money was sent in speculative accounts. why?? because the people that got the most tax cut do not need the money to live or invest in the economy. the are not entreprenors that are of the financial type like Romney.
3/The propblem is not with the 47% (even thouhg they live in Red States and vote Republican), the problem is with people that do not want any limit to wealth. We are back to the robber barons. next time you rent a movie take "Citizen Kane"
c...
Take the red pill or the blue pill; no difference in modern politics post WWII and the Fed founding in 1913.
'Crush the bourgeoisie between the millstones of inflation and taxation.' (Lenin)
Lenin, Marx, Stalin...all funded by the central banksters, the Soclialist Internationale. You are a mere unit of production, something that serves the State, by their way of thinking.
That way of thinking is un-American. Get off your knees. Reject the blue pill and the red pill. Defend the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Tell Congress to bury the NDAA or would you rather live on your knees instead of die on your feet, comrade?
Democrats are the undereducated free loader class -- by a wide margin. ("Rhetoric vs Reality... Democrat vs Republican," Joseph Fried, 2008)
Red team earns 55% more college degrees than blue team does, every year since records were first kept in 1953. They also pay more taxes, are less likely to cheat on taxes, give more to charity, and are more tolerant of others. Our prisons are bursting with rapists and murderers which are 85% democrat, which is why DNC is always trying to get them the vote.
Even Red states have high population urban cities full of Dem dropouts, crime, and social problems which are run by, and for, democrats: Memphis. NOLA, Atlanta, Little Rock, Jackson, Gary (IN), Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Houston, Denver, Detroit, and Miami, to name a familiar few. Those are your people, you said so.
The crime rate of rural red America is same as Western Europe or Canada, only about 2.5/100k homicide rate. Compared to 12/100k for your urban democrat areas -- which is about 500% higher and similar to second world countries.
The drop out rate of Cleveland is 67%, Detroit and Chicago are 50+% ... you must be proud. NYC was just voted dirtiest, loudest, and rudest city in America.
Repubs can't be both hillbillys and corporate fat cats at the same time, you're a stooge for MSM propaganda. They are your evil neighbors who have graduated, work hard, raise their own kids, keep their lawn mowed, watch football, and pay the taxes for the other half.
we need more think tanks
The low wage taxpayer is the person who helps me when I am ill, the nurse; the person who saves me in an emergency: the fireman, the policeman, the amubulanceman; the person who makes American made goods which I choose to buy, rather than ship jobs abroad; the soldier, airman and navy man who fights abroad so I don't have to be there; the soldier, airman and navy man who doesn't want to be there, but failed politicians grifting off all put them there; the nice person at the local bank who I trust, whilst central banksters serve the Socialist Internationale, the Trilateral Commission.
'Lies, damned lies, and statistics.'
Median expected salaries in the United States (per salary.com):
Staff Nurse - RN in the United States is $66,178.
Paramedic in the United States is $38,443.
Fire Fighter in the United States is $42,012.
Police Patrol Officer in the United States is $50,241.
Factory Worker Average Average: $35,000 Related Titles & Salary Ranges: http://www.indeed.com/salary/Factory-Worker.html
Military: $15,900 to $30,600.
E1 - Recruit - Basic Training (Army) E1 - Seaman Recruit (Navy) E2 - Private (Army) E2 - Seaman Apprentice (Navy) E3 - Private First Class (Army) E3 - Seaman (Navy) E4 - Petty Officer - 3rd Class (Navy) E4 - Specialist/Corporal (Army) E5 - Petty Officer - 2nd Class (Navy) E5 - Sergeant (Army) E6 - Petty Officer - 1st Class (Navy) E6 - Staff Sergeant (Army)Benefits not included.
In an intentional, perpetual, creeping monetary inflationist fiat monetary scheme, taxes are merely a curb on future price inflation.
* at the federal level.
Eh? Put that in plain English. It is the fancy complexity of financial engineering which has ruined and brutalised the modern world.
Et tu, Brutus?
The answer this article and charts arrives at is a direct result of how the question is phrased.
It's like the difference between asking "Have you ever committed a crime?" or "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?"
This "who pays what in taxes" is a very easy one to skew. It's all about how you ask the question.
For a different set of charts that contradicts the above shown, see this:
Misconceptions and Realities About Who Pays Taxes
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505
Stopped reading when I saw "Heritage Foundation"
I almost did also...but decided to read it all. I had no real functional and immediate use for those 5 wasted minutes of my life anyways.
I suggest everyone read the US Code Chapter 26 section 861 to find out what is taxable income and what income is exempt. You might be surprised to learn only foreign income is taxable.
Please refer to whatistaxed.com
key point in above graphs is federal income tax as there are a host of other taxes as well
they mention small business tax hikes of which 3% of small businesses fall into the over 250k category
US EFFECTIVE corp tax rate one of the lowest in the world at 13.4% http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//2-28-11tax-f2.jpg. i mean is heritage so pathetic they focus on stated tax rate and not corporate
Yet the vast majority of the people who owe no federal income taxes fall into one of three categories
Approximately 61 percent are working people who pay payroll taxes. As noted above, even the low-income households in this group pay substantial federal income taxes over time. The main options to force these people to pay federal income tax in years when their incomes are low include cutting the EITC or the Child Tax Credit, which would tend to reduce work incentives and increase child poverty and welfare use, and lowering the standard deduction or personal exemption, which could tax many low-income working families into, or deeper into, poverty.
An additional 22 percent of people who did not pay federal income taxes in 2009 are people aged 65 or older who have modest incomes (and do not have earnings). The main option to make these individuals pay federal income tax would be to subject their Social Security benefits to taxation despite their limited income.
The remaining 17 percent includes students, people with disabilities or illnesses, the long-term unemployed, and other people with very low taxable incomes. To make these people pay federal income taxes, policymakers would have to tax disability, veterans’, and similar benefits or make full-time students and the long-term jobless individuals borrow (or draw from any available savings) to pay taxes on their meager incomes.
take all taxes (state, fed income, fica, etc) and it's pretty even across the board
http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2012/04/who_pays_taxes_in_america.php
Thank you. This is the problem with the republican party. They are accusing the 61 and 22% mentioned above as being part of the 17%. And, of that 17%, only a fraction are legitimate freeloaders. Middle income, conservative americans have no representation at all. It's the wacko lefties and the elite, arrogant richies. Sorry, I didn't get a couple hundred million from my daddy to start out with. I'm just a working slob paying my way. i guess I'll write in Mickey Mouse, or maybe Secession.
Are the figures based on rates or actual revenues?
GE supposedly has a rate of 39% but manages to pay close to 0% so...
Dude, the Heritage Foundation?? Really??? You can't believe anything that comes out of that shitty think tank.
Bogus analysis without breaking down that 'top 1%'. There's ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE differences between someone just in the 'top 1%' - some wage slave (albeit at a higher level) who's paying fuk freight in taxes - 50% between federal state and local incoeme and property taxes, not to mention sales tax - and the top.001% who are worth hundreds of millions and MAYBE paying 15% of their total income in taxes (with a good amount sheltered overseas paying NOTHING).
I'll bet that a good amount of that 'top 1%' tax payment is made by the LOWEST earners in the top 1% - at a level far disproportionate to that paid by the wealthiest.
Low to mid 6 figures here in NYC makes you upper middle class and odds are you're paying out half your income in txes. NO COMPARISON to those in the Forbes 400. Hell, I know one person worth 'only' a few hundred million who had his company open an office in CT so he could avoid paying NY income tax. Odds are it cost the company as much to open the office for him as he would've paid NY - but that cost wasn't paid out of HIS pocket.
IN his own words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge3aGJfDSg4
So, A bunch of fuckin' skumbag freeloader immigrants and minorities who sponge off society...their vote is equal to mine?
ahh this won't work much longer.
Put me down for zero. I knew right from the start that there were happy people and those that worked. I chose to be one of the happy ones. I must be a decendant of one of the cultures that looked upon wealth as a burden. Wealth is for stupid people.
As if wealth and happiness are mutually exclusive. Yer doin it wrong.
And since the "youth" don't get to write the laws of this so called "social contract" we have in place a Constitution which allows for its own revocation. Interestingly enough, this revocation did not require a majority of the British, it only requires a few people who at that time called themselves "Americans"
Wonder what the new group will call themselves? Their power will some day be without limits due to the freedom that they allow their members.
okz
plz explain how letting the bush tax cuts expire means that obama is hiking taxes.
the bush tax cuts were always meant to be a temporary thing so effectively its a return to status quo.
not an obama supporter but i think they are giving him the shitty end of the deal. if bush had the ability to make them permanent then it would have been a real tax cut, not a temporary alleviation of taxes.
Bottom half pays virtually ZERO, but some of us already knew that.
Problem is still spending. The Stimulus Package alone would have covered health care for all 20 million uninsured for 15 years. Would have been much better spent too, rather than bailing out profligate states and cronies for no jobs.
A nice chunk of the bottom half actually has a negative tax rate (i.e. no tax liability but they still get a "refund"). That's possible through the use of refundable tax credits like EITC.
Mostly you have to pretend FICA isn't a tax to believe that, tho.
I mean, sure, perhaps it seems plausible: money the government takes out of your paycheck that you never see that gets folded into general revenue to help fail to pay for all that other shit.
I can ALMOST understand why someone wouldn't call that a "tax."
Simple. Return taxes to pre 1970 level. There, problem solved.
It's hard to fault those who pay no taxes when you consider the waste and corruption all that easy money creates for government.
Instead of accusing the 47% (some of whom are actually millionaires) it might be more productive to increase that figure to 99% and cut government accordingly.
Well, I see The Heritage Foundation has seen fit to not post income and assett distribution trends subsequent to the 1976, '82, '86 and 2002 Tax Act's. My, The Girls are being dishonest tonight...
Picture this: A Fortress on E Street, NE, Washinton, DC. The dweebiest collection of nerds - spineless, all - assemble every day and dutifully go to work (aka: Policy Circle Jerk). Grover Norquist is the prevailing Queen-in-Command of this army of pathetic, defensive, insecure twirps who compile data; lie; obfuscate. They are paid well. And, they have jobs. Given their personality type, no one is really expected to hire them, otherwise. They can't cut it in academia; they have ZERO interpersonal intelligence. These are Text Book Sychophants. Really really unpleasant-to-be-around types.
IF The Heritrage Foundation wanted to be seen as less of a threat (domestic terrorists?) and more of a legitimate organization, then they would have included data reflecting the real issue: Economic Stagnation has been holding hands with Stagnant Wages. Since 70% of the U.S. economy is/was consumer driven, the huge wealth consolidation that has taken place over the last 36 years has to be reversed. Like it or not, Capitalism cannot exist without Socialism. Ignore it at Our Countries peril, but, Capitalism/Socialism cannot exist when it has been replaced with Corporatism and Cronyism. You know, the current status-quo...
I think everyone who has earned (or interest) income, even the poorest among us, should pay some income tax. We should ALL feel the bite and satisfaction of contirbuting to OUR society. Of course I believe in a progressive tax structure but I believe everyone should contribute. At any rate we have to find a better solution than having the government borrow 40 cents of every dollar it spends.
Note, I am a registered republican. I am disgusted with the Republican argument that 47% of the population doesn't pay federal income tax, suffers from victimhood, etc... This is clearly cherry picking in it's most outrageous form. I'm a middle income american. I still paid social security tax, medicare, medicaid, etc... The reason I didn't pay a federal income tax was b/c of the Republican Bush tax cut. I got a small sum of money back. In the years before the Bush tax cuts, I did pay a federal income tax.
Rush, Hannity, and now MITT can scoff at me, look down their noses at me, accuse me of not paying my fair share, call me a person suffering from victimhood. Screw, it's your policies that gave me a tax return. AND, I'd argue that a much larget share of my income goes to paying Federal taxes, state taxes and Fees out the wazoo, than some rich elite snob pays.
I'm a goddamned fucking republican, and my own party leaders are scoffing at me. Go fuck yourself MITT, you just lost yourself this election. Conservative middle income america is who you needed to vote for you, and you just showed yourself to be a rich elite puke.
This election should have been a cake walk for you. And you, MITT, are such a terd that people would rather vote for FUCKING OBAMA! For a guy that graduated from Harvard, you sure are retarded.
Holy crap but did MoveOn pile on their redistribution Robin Hood crap here.
Taxes pay for war
Taxes are distributed to crones like JPMorgan & Solyndra
More and more taxes are collected but our bridges rot, roads grow potholes like acne, crime is on the rise,.... How many years of fascism do we need before we admit it don't work?
Taxes are bad. We don't need all these taxes. We don't need all these bureaucrats.
Taxes pay for a social safety net. The fact that the system has been twisted to favor cronies doesn't change that.
Whoa there boy this is a fact free zone dontchaknow, off to the gulag with you!
Inflation Tax = Stealth Tax
The reason why this became not earlier visible is connected to the role of the US Dollar as the worlds currency. The printed Dollars created inflation all over the world thus spreading the "Inflation Tax Burden". But in 2007/2008 two things became obvious.
1) The US simply prints to many Dollars to be sucked up by the world markets. The tax rate was simply put too high to be further accepted by China, Russia, India, etc.. Western Europe joined these countries in their fight against the ever rising US stealth tax on their population.
2) This resulted in the fact, that the newly printed Dollars started to sit on the shelves in the US and did not leave the country. This created the problem that Japan, China etc bought since then dramaticlly lesser Treaseries as compared to the past.
3) This made it necessary that the Fed is now directly monetizing (printing) the Dollars needed to cover appx 50% of the US budget.
And this means in the consequence, that the "inflation tax axe" is now going to hit with full power the American middle class but as well also the underclass. The underclass is going to suffer the most because energy costs and food may skyrocket soon and real money is short. All there is is debt.
So all in all it can be stated, that 90% of the population are going to pay the tax bill in the US which was originally planned to be paid by the rest of the world and not America. This bill is huge, very huge. Nobody can pay it anymore. Thats why the collapse is inevetible.
This is in total contrast to the idea that the upper 10% are paying the bulk of the taxes. Bullshit. The full tax load thought for the world is coming back home to the US and one can be sure, that the top earners do not pay much. In the opposite, they grasp the chance to make even more money. Their motto is: In the crisis there are the best opportunities!
Or in other words: The already dying corpus of main street US is going to be fucked once more, over and over. Dead or alive !!!
i see from the comments that drudge and free republic have linked to this story already.
ZH used to call out biased and skewed data for what it was (bullshit), yet its pushing the heritage fallacy?
It really does not matter the taxes being discussed this morning. I really do not care what a rich person makes to be honest. I care about making enough money to live on and invest myself. People envy others and who cares to be honest. In the end it does not matter who the government taxes, they just want more money to spend. We can all bicker, call each other names depending on what side of the fence your on, but the bottom line is the government is the root of the problem.
I do get tired of people making a successful person out to be a criminal these days. I am sucessful and do not make 6 figures. I do my best to pay the least amount of taxes just like everyone else here. I do get tired of rich fuckers telling others they need to pay more taxes, when all they need to do is whip out their checkbooks and write a bigger check. Not going to happen though. Even those decrying commentors this morning ZH hates the poor or being schills for the GOP do the same thing. Give me a break. Freedom of speech is a bitch and if you do not like it your on the wrong site.
How about whipping out your check books and paying more taxes then your require to pay or shut the fuck up! Class warfare is the oldest political trick in the book and used to camoflage the real issues in this country. Keep on buying into the propaganda. Your welcome to go visit any housing project close to your hometown. I can guarantee all of you one thing there will not be any starving children there.
These charts are a perfect example of Lying with Statistics, and further proof that the right thinks people are too stupid to see through their rhetoric. But wait, Rush Limbaugh has proven millions really are that stupid.
Every so-called "government" is a fiction.
Every so-called "corporation" is a fiction.
In fact, in fundamental law, all organizations are called "fictitious entities". Of course, even this attempt at semi-honesty is incorrect, since a fiction doesn't exist, and is therefore not an entity. So-called "government" and "corporation" and "central bank" and any organization is just as real as SantaClaus or EasterBunny or ToothFairy.
So many comments about how to "fix" the unfixable. The only way to fix the problem is to wake up, be an adult, stop being a 3 year old who hasn't figured out the difference between a fiction and reality.
What does exist?
- the universe, including:
- predators DBA government
- predators DBA corporations
- predators DBA central banks
Get the picture? Virtually ALL the pain, agony, suffering, criminality and absurdity of modern life comes from accepting non-existents (fictions) as real things and acting as if they are real.
The fix? STOP BEING STUPID CHILDREN. Get clear about what is real, and what is fiction. THEN stop letting fictions push you around.
I understand why it can seem compelling to debate which kind of tax scam is best. But doing so is literal insanity. It is equivalent to debating how you think humans should be robbed, cheated, scammed and enslaved by predators. How about rejecting theft, enslavement, fictions and predators instead?
Ah, never mind. Humans are too dumb. Humans are finished!
To be completely honest --- Both sides of the political sprecturm touting the "middle class" are full of it.
Fact -- Money is easily moved.
Fact -- Those with a lot of money either know how to move it around on their own, or pay someone to do it for them.
Fact -- As long as there are places like Switzerland, Luxembourg, The Caymans, and now Russia (although I'd take out anti-nationalization insurance through a Swiss firm just in case) where you can stick a bazillion dollars without anyone ever known or being able to prove it, the middle and upper middle class are going to get stuck with the bill. Period. Full stop.
I know many on here say "Go after the tax dodgers . . ." they also happen to be the people that don't want 'Merika playing world police with other nation's independence. So why can't the Left go yeup, we are actually betting on the Middle class flipping the bill, and the Right say yeup, we have more money than the Vatican hidden over seas. So what?
Your "facts" are complete and utter horse shit. I own a gold mine on the Yukon, and moving dollars to minimize tax burden is damn near impossible, even with the advice of very expensive lawyers and accountants. I just read an article YESTERDAY that was detailing how the Swiis banks and most foreign banks are having to completely re-invent themselves because there is no secrecy any longer.
Here's the better question. Why are you so concerned with taking more of your fellow citizens' property, porperty that has already been taxed multiple times? So we can still spend a billion per year to store evaporated milk in man made caves and bunkers, LITERALLY ?!?! IDIOTS !! All youi college age masturbators sit around drinking booze and smoking diope thinking you just "know" things when reality is COMPLETELY different.
Here's what's depressing about this thread. The pseudo-intellegentsia and their comments in this thread. Saying "oh it from site X" and therefore discounting all data is IDIOTIC. Those numbers are real, supplied by the IRS and should be offensive to EVERYONE here. Compare the rates to ANY other nation and it would be apparent almost immeditely that we have the narrowest tax base on the planet. It's not even close.
But even MORE to the point is the underlying theme. A sizeable number of people posting here are more interested in maintaning the gov't revenue stream to keep in place the leviathan of a gov't we currently have. There is almost no mention of the runaway size of the gov't, the ridiculous programs that fellow citizens are forced to surrender their property to support out of coercion. We've spent $15 TRILLION on the "War on Poverty". We've spent that nuch on the "War on Crime". How about the "War on Drugs". Care to look at a list of the federal gov't agencies and tell me which are considered crucial?
For every GE in bed with the gov't paying almost no taxes, there are 1000 more businesses getting absolutely crushed by the tax burden. I cannot believe the number of people in the thread who have fully bought into the class warfare garbage. The proper response should be, "That's insane, NO ONE should pay more than 20% of taxes regardless of their wealth. This nation was founded on the premise of protecting private property, not maximizing gov't revenue." That last sentence is key. They seem far more interested in maintaining the bloated gov't at the expense of fellow citizens. We should all be unanimously in arms over the bloated size of our modern gov't, but many here trot along blissfully ignorant like the brainwashed college students most seem to be. The pseudo-intelligentsia who know all yet haven't had top live through it one minute of their life, just like Obamugabe.
I am a partial owner of a business that employs 1500+ people in 20 different states, and yes, the tax and regulatory burden is killing us. We survive by taking over smaller competitors who literally have no means to survive for this exact reason. When the whole system collapses under its own weight, at least the kiddies here can cheer that they kept voting to steal fellow citizens property to pay for social insecurity, medicare, and pension of federal employees, NONE of which is deemed legal by the Constitution, but when did that get in the way of a little theft amongst greeedy college students.
http://www.economicnoise.com/2012/09/19/logic-is-harmful/