The top 20% of Americans pay 84% of federal income taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center. Does that sound like a fair share to you?
Posted by Fox Business on Monday, April 13, 2015
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16 comments:
You are asking the wrong question. Who pays what percent of their income is a better question to ask to judge fairness?
If everyone(!) actually paid xx percent of their income (regardless of source), we wouldn't have this issue. The reasons we have disparities is the gov't supporting special groups with carve-outs and carve-ins!
fair? sure why not
don't the poor deserve their money more? don't they work harder?
Most are grossly overpaid to begin with.
11:37 exactly it is called a flat tax. eliminate the IRS
Of course it's fair. Who would pay for Jonathan Taylor's cheeseburgers?
Let's talk about fair I am no where near the top 20% in this country, but I pay my taxes! Today I am sending a check to both state and federal - so don't give me any of this BS that the top 20% pays the most. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and there is no middle class anymore and that's the truth!
Flat tax - bring it on!
Look deeper at the numbers for the real story.
The bottom 50% (<$36k/yr) pay 12% of income taxes. Seems like they aren't pulling their weight, but try to rent a house, drive to work, and have 2 kids on that amount of money. They really don't have money to pay taxes.
The top 20% ($111k/yr) pay 80%. It seems outsized as a group, but we just realized that half the people can't afford to pay taxes. With that consideration, it's not too unreasonable.
The top 10% ($160k/yr) pay 70% of the taxes. They also earn 45% of the nation's income. So ~35 million people make almost half the country's income.
The top 1% ($380k/yr)pay 50% of the nation's taxes. They earn 20% of the nation's income and pay about 20% of the nation's taxes. 3.5 million people earn 1/5th of all the income. Notice the trend? The % of income keeps carrying forward at a high rate, but their share of taxes is starting to go down.
The top .1% (1.9MM/yr) pay 16% of taxes. They make about 10% of the nation's income. It starts to seem outsized, but they are making more in a week than the bottom 50% make all year. They can afford to chip in a little extra, right?
The top 0.1% ($9MM) earn 5% of the nation's income. They pay about $1MM/yr in taxes on average, and it's more than the bottom 80%. But come on...you cant' live comfortably on $7 million and chip in $2 million?
The top 0.01% ($14MM) earn 12% of the nation's income. 3,500 people have as much wealth as the bottom 3,000,000 people. And they make almost 3x the money as the other top 31,500 earners.
Now...your effective tax rates peak around the 80th percentile, and then go down to about 16% for the top 0.001%. That's the same effective tax rate of ~75k/yr.
The top 0.001% make $350MM/yr. Don't you think they can afford to pay a larger portion of your income in taxes than $75k/yr? I do.
If I explained it well enough, all the wealth is concentrated at the very top. They report using the "top 20%" level to bury this fact while you think about the numbers in your "middle class" mindset. And let's be honest, the top 20% ($111k) isn't unobtainable by any means for a two income family with college degrees and substantial work experience. And that income level isn't going to do much for you in the very expensive cities like NY, LA, and SF.
Isn't this amazing? The Clintons have a $2B tax free foundation and yet pay most of the taxes. No winder we have such a huge deficit.
1:07, good analysis, but you repeated the "point 1%" number with different incomes and payouts.
Our family got to see what it was like to make $115,000 for awhile. You are correct that it is not "rich."
11:54
Hard workers get paid and pay taxes. The poor have chosen to have kids out of wedlock,drugs and/or alcohol, and dropped out of school in 98% of of the cases.
ok. Well. The more money I make, the greater the percentage of my income I must pay. i am no longer eligible for credits that the lower income people receive and even my capital gains taxes are going back up...capital gains that I have from investing so I am not relying on taxpayers in my retirement...apparently, the government can handle that better than me too.
Don't they work harder?
Are you serious?
I have been poor and it sucks eggs....but i worked hard to get where I am. Not to have to hand it over to a government to mismanage it.
There are a few types of poor:
The poor man who wants to know that he can succeed...that there is a path to wealth and America has made that very possible in the past.
The poor man who has zero ambition And will never do more than he must and the poor man who is disabled and truly needs our help.
who are you to say that a wealthy man does not work hard? Why is success suddenly frowned upon? Talk about predjudice!
instead of worrying about who pays more, or less tax, why don't you worry about paying taxes in the first place?
Period.
Your "leaders", so squeaky clean and honest, have FOR YEARS (decades), accepted bribes, took kickbacks and favors in order to insert lines in the tax code to benefit themselves, their families, and their "contributors".
ALL to the detriment of the huge majority of Americans. (that would include you).
You think any one them are "your guy"?
They are screwing you left and right, up and down, all around and then passing you off to the next career liar and thief.
You cheer and vote for them like they just baked you a cake!
The top 1% are watching their wealth SKYROCKET while they tell us they are barely getting by and need to cut health care, pensions, benefits, and full time workers.
As for all those lazy poor people waiting around for a handout, do they really differ much from the Walton family, many many of whom have NEVER worked a day in their lives? They live of the largess of their ancestors. Both groups are waiting for a handout they didn't earn.
Meanwhile, the middle class watches their jobs shrink or disappear, their 401(k)'s get cleaned out, their house value stagnate, and the price of an education reach levels no middle class family can afford.
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