45% of Americans Do Not Contribute Any Federal Income Taxes...

[s0me0nesmind1]

Inyet, they find themselves running around preaching that the rich need to pay more.

The top 20% "rich" bracket pays nearly 87% of all FED Income taxes. Do some of you have problems realizing what this means? Essentially, when our government needs to pay our bills, the top 55% have to not only pay their share, but also the share of the remaining 45%. But the lower class is suffering...

Many Americans don’t have to worry about giving Uncle Sam part of their hard-earned cash for their income taxes this year.

An estimated 45.3% of American households — roughly 77.5 million — will pay no federal individual income tax, according to data for the 2015 tax year from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington-based research group. (Note that this does not necessarily mean they won’t owe their states income tax.)

Roughly half pay no federal income tax because they have no taxable income, and the other roughly half get enough tax breaks to erase their tax liability, explains Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

Despite the fact that rich people paying little in the way of income taxes makes plenty of headlines, this is the exception to the rule: The top 1% of taxpayers pay a higher effective income-tax rate than any other group (around 23%, according to a report released by the Tax Policy Center in 2014) — nearly seven times higher than those in the bottom 50%.

On average, those in the bottom 40% of the income spectrum end up getting money from the government. Meanwhile, the richest 20% of Americans, by far, pay the most in income taxes, forking over nearly 87% of all the income tax collected by Uncle Sam.

The top 1% of Americans, who have an average income of more than $2.1 million, pay 43.6% of all the federal individual income tax in the U.S.; the top 0.1% — just 115,000 households, whose average income is more than $9.4 million — pay more than 20% of it.

When it comes to all federal taxes — individual income, payroll, excise, corporate income and estate taxes — the distributions of who pays what is more spread out. This is partially because nearly everyone pays excise taxes, which includes taxes on gasoline, alcohol and cigarettes.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/45-americans-pay-no-federal-140345017.html

My view? Make like all the countries that you liberals advocate for and let's go VAT. Instead of taking from people that earn money, why don't we reverse it and make it based off those that consume money. You know you guys love to toot the socialist demographics of euro nations, so what are you waiting for? Get out there and push for VAT.

 

[norseamd]

1st!

That is about the most this discussion actually deserves.

 

[nickqt]

Inyet, they find themselves running around preaching that the rich need to pay more.

The top 20% "rich" bracket pays nearly 87% of all FED Income taxes. Do some of you have problems realizing what this means? Essentially, when our government needs to pay our bills, the top 55% have to not only pay their share, but also the share of the remaining 45%. But the lower class is suffering



http://finance.yahoo.com/news/45-americans-pay-no-federal-140345017.html

My view? Make like all the countries that you liberals advocate for and let's go VAT. Instead of taking from people that earn money, why don't we reverse it and make it based off those that consume money. You know you guys love to toot the socialist demographics of euro nations, so what are you waiting for? Get out there and push for VAT.

Go get 'em, Mitt!

 

[sandorski]

Ahh, this old canard again.

 

[dank69]

I won't be happy until every retired SS recipient is paying taxes on their government handouts.

 

[master_shake_]

if you're not broke you're not doing your part.

 

[Strk]

And? Nothing here is new. It is being a bit pedantic though since it is income tax. That is a bit different than no taxes at all. At $50k, you're talking around $7k in income taxes (going with average household income).

You then have FICA, state, local, property etc. Even when getting their entire income tax back doesn't mean they aren't paying a lot in taxes.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I won't be happy until every retired SS recipient is paying taxes on their government handouts.

Actually, SS recipients do pay income taxes on their "government handouts". But nice try.

 

[norseamd]

I won't be happy until every retired SS recipient is paying taxes on their government handouts.

Exactly. Make sure to add paperwork to cover the government taking money back from money they already gave, instead of just giving less money in the first place.

 

[leper84]

The lower, working and middle class are suffering because we flooded the market with cheap, illegal, overabundant labor and outsourced all the working/middle class jobs to other countries to maximize profits.

Oh wait, WE didn't do that. The top 1% did that. Once the upper class stops using the government to make themselves even more rich is when I'll care about the little guy having to pay an equal percent of taxes, coming from someone who does pay taxes.

 

[norseamd]

The lower, working and middle class are suffering because we flooded the market with cheap, illegal, overabundant labor and outsourced all the working/middle class jobs to other countries to maximize profits.

Not rooting for rich using cheap labor, but tell me how it was illegal?

 

[dank69]

Actually, SS recipients do pay income taxes on their "government handouts". But nice try.

Some do, which is ridiculous by the way, but I won't be happy until they all do.

 

[Jhhnn]

Inyet, they find themselves running around preaching that the rich need to pay more.

The top 20% "rich" bracket pays nearly 87% of all FED Income taxes. Do some of you have problems realizing what this means? Essentially, when our government needs to pay our bills, the top 55% have to not only pay their share, but also the share of the remaining 45%. But the lower class is suffering...



http://finance.yahoo.com/news/45-americans-pay-no-federal-140345017.html

My view? Make like all the countries that you liberals advocate for and let's go VAT. Instead of taking from people that earn money, why don't we reverse it and make it based off those that consume money. You know you guys love to toot the socialist demographics of euro nations, so what are you waiting for? Get out there and push for VAT.

Such a nasty little troll. All puffed up in self righteousness, too.

Total taxes are what matter-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-47-percent-argument-is-an-abuse-of-tax-data/

What you have left afterwards is subject to diminishing marginal utility.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Such a nasty little troll. All puffed up in self righteousness, too.

Total taxes are what matter-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-47-percent-argument-is-an-abuse-of-tax-data/

What you have left afterwards is subject to diminishing marginal utility.

Such a silly little kid. We have a national debt problem. Paying state Sales & Use taxes do not go into Uncle Sam's pocket. It goes into the state/city. You're so silly. Here, have a book on tax basics 101.

 

[nickqt]

Such a silly little kid. We have a national debt problem. Paying state Sales & Use taxes do not go into Uncle Sam's pocket. It goes into the state/city. You're so silly. Here, have a book on tax basics 101.

There is no national debt problem.

Most of the national debt is owed to...wait for it...other governmental agencies. Most of the remainder is owed to...wait for it...US citizens.

The national debt is an accounting of private saving, past and future.

Being upset, or even pissed off, that the poorest people in the US don't make enough money to pay Federal Income Taxes is admirable.

Being upset that -gasp- the richest people in the solar system pay a part of their gigantic incomes in Federal Income Taxes, is hilarious.

Again, go get 'em, Mitt. I'm sure your message is going to resonate with at least 47% of the population.

 

[leper84]

Not rooting for rich using cheap labor, but tell me how it was illegal?

The immigration status of the laborers. Paying them less than minimum wage without even worrying about payroll taxes. Employing people who have basically no Federal labor rights what-so-ever.

 

[glenn1]

I won't be happy until every retired SS recipient is paying taxes on their government handouts.

I'd prefer we remove the federal deduction for state income and sales taxes paid. If you vote for high taxes where you live then pay them fully instead of having others subsidize your tax bill.

 

[norseamd]

The immigration status of the laborers. Paying them less than minimum wage without even worrying about payroll taxes. Employing people who have basically no Federal labor rights what-so-ever.

Illegal Mexican labor has existed for a very long time, and is a huge problem, but outsourcing is not domestic illegal labor.

 

[Darwin333]

Exactly how much more would you like those poor fuckers to contribute? Ever hear the story about trying to get blood from a turnip?

Bottom line is that evidently we "want" our government to spend this amount of money and therefore someone has to pay for it. The debate comes down to how many people we want to deny medical care, food or housing (ironically the latter two seem to be the most hotly debated despite being FAR cheaper) versus how many new fancy jets we want to field.

You could pass a "balanced budget" amendment tomorrow and the taxes on the rich must jump like crazy. You just can't possibly tax anyone else enough without them being driven into taking desperate actions, as humans tend to do when faced with starvation. To make matters even worse the actions of said desperate people hurt the rich just as much so they get double whammied.

 

[DrDoug]

I would have titled this "45% of Americans do not make enough to pay federal income taxes".

It's all in how you look at a problem.

 

[Slew Foot]

I'd prefer we remove the federal deduction for state income and sales taxes paid. If you vote for high taxes where you live then pay them fully instead of having others subsidize your tax bill.

for the most part, its the people at the bottom of the income ladder who dont pay taxes voting for working people to pay taxes

 

[glenn1]

Exactly how much more would you like those poor fuckers to contribute? Ever hear the story about trying to get blood from a turnip?

Bottom line is that evidently we "want" our government to spend this amount of money and therefore someone has to pay for it. The debate comes down to how many people we want to deny medical care, food or housing (ironically the latter two seem to be the most hotly debated despite being FAR cheaper) versus how many new fancy jets we want to field.

You could pass a "balanced budget" amendment tomorrow and the taxes on the rich must jump like crazy. You just can't possibly tax anyone else enough without them being driven into taking desperate actions, as humans tend to do when faced with starvation. To make matters even worse the actions of said desperate people hurt the rich just as much so they get double whammied.

Go ahead and bring on those desperate actions, we need a pretense for the police to do even more beating the crap out of some folks. That's presuming that local citizens don't "Castle Doctrine" them first thus solving our problem for us. Either that or some white urban yuppies have their worst fears realized and are lynched, either is fine with me.

 

[Jhhnn]

Such a silly little kid. We have a national debt problem. Paying state Sales & Use taxes do not go into Uncle Sam's pocket. It goes into the state/city. You're so silly. Here, have a book on tax basics 101.

It certainly matters to the people paying the taxes, particularly to people who have a high marginal utility for money, the people whose share of national income has been reduced so far that paying federal taxes is adding injury to insult.

 

[Darwin333]

My view? Make like all the countries that you liberals advocate for and let's go VAT. Instead of taking from people that earn money, why don't we reverse it and make it based off those that consume money. You know you guys love to toot the socialist demographics of euro nations, so what are you waiting for? Get out there and push for VAT.

If your side traded them single payer healthcare they might actually bite at that.

End of the day you still can't get blood from a turnip though so if we want the government that we evidently want then we can either continue going into debt or the people that can afford to pay will have to pay. It really is that simple.

You could financially ruin the bottom 30% and still not cover the deficit.

 

[MajinCry]

The OP makes it sound as if a fixed percentage tax hurts everybody equally.

A guy who makes £450,000,000,000 might just have to lay off of the all-day-every-day eight course meals of gold-leaf caviar, if he has to pay £449,000,000,000 in income tax.

But a guy who makes £8,000 is going to be looking pretty damn rough by week 3, if he has to pay £1,500 in income tax.