CBO reports top 40% pay 106% of US income tax

[BUnit1701]

I am guessing they completely ignore payroll taxes, as is customary for a rightwing publication.

Really? The CBO is a 'rightwing publication'?

 

[Paul98]

And they can pay an even higher percentage...

 

[brycejones]

Really? The CBO is a 'rightwing publication'?

CNS news is......their story is going to be as biased as they can make it.

 

[BUnit1701]

And here's the breakdown by national income:

Lowest Quintile: 3.2% ($20k or less)
Second Quintile: 8.4% ($20k-38.5)
Third Quintile: 14.3% ($38.5-62.4)
Fourth Quintile: 23% ($62.4-101.5)
Highest Quintile: 51.5% ($101.5+)
(https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS20811.pdf)
Bonus bracket: Top 5%: 22.3% ($186k+)

So the top 40% also takes home 74.5% of the entire nation's income, while the lowest 40% shares 11.6%.

And as for wealth:

(Image from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States)

So the top 40% has 95.8% of all of America's wealth. Swell.

Yep That's what rightwingers always do to perpetuate their notion of "takers" aka 47%, and their victims, the "makers" aka the 1%. They only focus on income tax, and completely ignore the payroll tax and sales tax, and property tax, and gas tax, etc. They also ignore the forgone wage increases that the 47% did not get even though the US productivity has increased a lot. Because the poor are the "takers," not the people whoa actually take all the gains of the economy for themselves.

Total federal taxes by group (Income, Payroll, and excise):

Lowest 1/5th : between 0 and .05%
Second 1/5th : 2.8%
Middle 1/5th : 9.2%
Fourth 1/5th : 18.4%
Hightest 1/5th : 69.3%

You were saying?

 

[Sea Ray]

The BS in all of this is the fact that some Americans are allowed to pay a negative tax or in other words get refunds on tax money they never paid. Obama labeled it "refundable tax credits". The GOP did a poor job explaining that to the American public. I call it a type of welfare. This was a ploy by Obama to give non taxpayers a tax credit. And don't give me any crap about FICA. That is an insurance program that is required by law. The lower income people get a bigger bang for their buck out of that program than any other. If you want to cut their contribution to it then you have to be open to cutting their benefits too. I don't think many want to go there so how 'bout we just keep FICA out of the conversation for now?

 

[werepossum]

Considering the thread title explicitly says "income tax" it's seemingly clear that they do ignore payroll tax.

As they should; payroll taxes are a mandatory retirement program largely for our own benefit. However, I think short term capital gains should also be taxed as wage income, to be fair. 'Tis not fair that the man whose saved capital earns his bread is taxed at half the rate of the man whose labor earns his bread.

 

[highland145]

The BS in all of this is the fact that some Americans are allowed to pay a negative tax or in other words get refunds on tax money they never paid. Obama labeled it "refundable tax credits". The GOP did a poor job explaining that to the American public. I call it a type of welfare. This was a ploy by Obama to give non taxpayers a tax credit. And don't give me any crap about FICA. That is an insurance program that is required by law. The lower income people get a bigger bang for their buck out of that program than any other. If you want to cut their contribution to it then you have to be open to cutting their benefits too. I don't think many want to go there so how 'bout we just keep FICA out of the conversation for now?

True but the EITC started before bummer.

But I earn a lot of income from the EITC so I'll not bitch too much about it.

 

[Theb]

True but the EITC started before bummer.

But I earn a lot of income from the EITC so I'll not bitch too much about it.

It doesn't matter that he was a teenager when EITC was enacted. It's still his fault.

 

[Tom]

The BS in all of this is the fact that some Americans are allowed to pay a negative tax or in other words get refunds on tax money they never paid. Obama labeled it "refundable tax credits". The GOP did a poor job explaining that to the American public. I call it a type of welfare. This was a ploy by Obama to give non taxpayers a tax credit. And don't give me any crap about FICA. That is an insurance program that is required by law. The lower income people get a bigger bang for their buck out of that program than any other. If you want to cut their contribution to it then you have to be open to cutting their benefits too. I don't think many want to go there so how 'bout we just keep FICA out of the conversation for now?

What is your point ? Our problem is the poor aren't poor enough ?

 

[berzerker60]

The BS in all of this is the fact that some Americans are allowed to pay a negative tax or in other words get refunds on tax money they never paid. Obama labeled it "refundable tax credits". The GOP did a poor job explaining that to the American public. I call it a type of welfare. This was a ploy by Obama to give non taxpayers a tax credit. And don't give me any crap about FICA. That is an insurance program that is required by law. The lower income people get a bigger bang for their buck out of that program than any other. If you want to cut their contribution to it then you have to be open to cutting their benefits too. I don't think many want to go there so how 'bout we just keep FICA out of the conversation for now?

It's almost as extreme as a negative income tax, espoused by such well-known liberal leftists as Milton Friedman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

 

[1prophet]

Paying their fair share indeed, corporations are people too but try that as a person.


http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-likes-tax-schemes-avoid-104500083.html

Well, the U.S. government isn’t going to “like” this: Facebook shifted a little over $1 billion in profits earned overseas to the Cayman Islands last year.
The world’s largest social networking site avoids hefty tax bills on most of its international earnings by using a web of subsidiaries in Ireland and the Cayman Islands, a favorite tax haven for many multinational corporations because it has no corporate tax.



Related: Offshore Accounts on the Rise and Costing Taxpayers



Facebook uses a tax-avoidance scheme that has been dubbed the “double Irish” because it involves two subsidiaries incorporated in Ireland. Similar strategies have been employed by other large multinationals like Google and Apple. In Facebook’s case, one subsidiary, Facebook Ireland Limited,



collects advertising revenue from around the world. In 2012, for example, it boasted a profit of €1.75 billion (or about $2.3 billion), but that quickly turned into a pre-tax loss of €626,000 (or about $850,000) when the company paid €1.75bn in “administrative expenses” tied to the use of intellectual property to the second subsidiary, Facebook Holdings Limited, the Financial Times reported.



The string of money moves dramatically reduced the taxes Facebook owed for 2012. In the end, Facebook reportedly paid €1.9 million (about $2.6 million) in Irish corporate taxes even as revenues surged to €1.79 billion.
Related: Tax Havens: Offshore Operations Cost U.S. Billions


The company defended its tax payments. “Facebook complies with all relevant corporate regulations including those related to filing company reports and taxation. We have our international headquarters in Ireland that employs almost 400 people and a series of smaller local offices providing support services all over Europe. Dublin was selected as the best location to hire staff with the right skills to run a multilingual hi-tech operation serving the whole of Europe,” a spokesman for Facebook said in a statement.



This isn’t the first time the social media giant’s tax practices have come under scrutiny. Earlier this year, the Center for Tax Justice, a left leaning tax advocacy group, released a report saying Facebook paid a negative tax rate in 2012, as company filings showed it would receive a tax refund of $429 million despite booking $1.1 billion in U.S. profits. The tax refund resulted from Facebook’s use of a tax break that allows companies to treat executive stock options the way they treat compensation—as an expense that trims their profits. The company’s CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg paid a bigger tax bill last year – about $1 billion.


Facebook is not alone, of course. In fact, every year U.S. multinational corporations avoid paying an estimated $90 billion in federal income taxes by sheltering profits in subsidiaries registered in tax havens, according to a report issued earlier this year by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).


The report showed that the top 100 publically traded U.S. corporations, including tech giants Apple, Microsoft and Google, had a collective $1.17 trillion stored offshore. Just 15 companies accounted for about two-thirds of that total.


Here are the top 10 companies sheltering the most money offshore, according to PIRG.
General Electric: GE has the most money parked offshore. In 2012, it held at least $108 billion abroad, with the money distributed across 18 subsidiaries in tax havens like Bermuda, Bahamas and Ireland.


Apple: The tech titan stores $102 billion offshore – under three Irish subsidiaries, two of which have no employees. PIRG estimates that if Apple didn’t harbor these profits offshore, it would owe the U.S. government $26 billion in taxes. Instead, it paid an effective tax rate of 3.4 percent on its offshore cash.


Pfizer: The world’s largest pharmaceutical company operates 174 subsidiaries in tax havens and currently stores $73 billion offshore. According to PIRG, Pfizer made more than 40 percent of its sales in the U.S. between 2010 and 2012 and still managed to report no federal taxable income in the U.S.


Microsoft: The company reported that five offshore subsidiaries held $60.8 billion in 2012. PIRG estimated that the software giant would owe $19.4 billion in U.S. taxes if it didn’t use tax havens. Microsoft also uses a subsidiary in Puerto Rico to avoid U.S. taxes on 47 percent of its U.S. sales, a Senate investigation found last year.



Merck: One of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, New Jersey-based Merck Co., had an estimated $53.4 billion offshore at 151 different subsidiaries in tax haven countries.


Johnson & Johnson: The company may be based in New Jersey but it harbored an estimated $49 billion abroad. It operates 55 different subsidiaries in tax havens like Ireland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Singapore.


IBM: The tech and financial consulting corporation headquartered in New York stored $44.4 billion offshore in 2012 through 16 different subsidiaries.


Exxon Mobil: The Texas-based oil giant generated some $450 billion in 2012 revenue. It had $43 billion offshore, controlled by 36 different subsidiaries in places like Bermuda, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, among others.


Citigroup: The bank reported operating 427 tax haven subsidiaries in 2008 but disclosed only 20 in 2012. Over that time period, Citigroup increased the amount of cash it reported holding offshore from $21.1 billion to $42.6 billion, ranking the company ninth on PIRG’s list.



Cisco Systems: The California-based tech company shelters $41.3 billion offshore. It reported having 47 different subsidiaries in places like Bahrain, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Jordan and Ireland.

 

[Tom]

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ter...ome-taxes-bottom-40-paid-91-got-average-18950

But remember, the rich need to pay their fair share...

For one thing, the top 40% aren't "the rich". Maybe the top 10% are rich.

Secondly, the tax code addresses an important reality that simple arithmetic doesn't. It takes a certain amount of money to survive, it doesn't make any sense to tax the money it takes to survive. We can argue what that number is, but if you include that portion of income in a comparison of who pays taxes, you're treating all income as if it's equal and the fact is it isn't.

Now the IEC. That's counted as a negative tax in these comparisons, it makes the poor look like free-loaders. But mortgage income tax subsidies are exactly the same thing but they don't get counted in the comparison because that would make the middle class and rich look like they're getting handouts too.

We give the working poor $5000 and they use it to feed and cloth themseves.

We let the middle class and rich not pay $5000 they otherwise would owe so they can live in a house they can't afford.

Both have the same effect on the government budget, roughly the same effect on the economy, but one is bad and one is good ?

This is where the real class warfare is, and it's the poor who are being demonized.

 

[Jhhnn]

Total federal taxes by group (Income, Payroll, and excise):

Lowest 1/5th : between 0 and .05%
Second 1/5th : 2.8%
Middle 1/5th : 9.2%
Fourth 1/5th : 18.4%
Hightest 1/5th : 69.3%

You were saying?

And, uhh, how does that compare to shares of income?

If I make 69% of the money & pay 69% of the taxes, do I have the right to frame that as a complaint? What if if I pay a somewhat higher percentage than the rest?

Cut to the bottom line- what's left for me? How does that compare to the average family? How good do I have it, anyway?

 

[BUnit1701]

It's almost as extreme as a negative income tax, espoused by such well-known liberal leftists as Milton Friedman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

Except he proposed it to replace welfare, not to run in parallel to it.

 

[nehalem256]

For one thing, the top 40% aren't "the rich". Maybe the top 10% are rich.

Secondly, the tax code addresses an important reality that simple arithmetic doesn't. It takes a certain amount of money to survive, it doesn't make any sense to tax the money it takes to survive. We can argue what that number is, but if you include that portion of income in a comparison of who pays taxes, you're treating all income as if it's equal and the fact is it isn't.

Now the IEC. That's counted as a negative tax in these comparisons, it makes the poor look like free-loaders. But mortgage income tax subsidies are exactly the same thing but they don't get counted in the comparison because that would make the middle class and rich look like they're getting handouts too.

We give the working poor $5000 and they use it to feed and cloth themseves.

We let the middle class and rich not pay $5000 they otherwise would owe so they can live in a house they can't afford.

Both have the same effect on the government budget, roughly the same effect on the economy, but one is bad and one is good ?

This is where the real class warfare is, and it's the poor who are being demonized.

The difference of course is the working poor were paying $0 before he got $5000 back.

And the upper middle class person not paying $5000 was previously paying $20000

So the difference is

Upper middle class guy pays $15000
Poor dude pays -$5000

It should be fairly obvious what the difference is between the 2. Mainly the rich people are getting handouts from their own money.

EDIT: And they probably aren't using the EITC to feed themselves. That is what the food stamps they get do

 

[Jhhnn]

It's almost as extreme as a negative income tax, espoused by such well-known liberal leftists as Milton Friedman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

Oh, wait... One of Reagan's top economic advisers was a leftist?

Really? I mean fucking Really?

While you are entitled to your own POV, you're not entitled to your own reality. Just step away from the fringe whack propaganda, sir, before you hurt yourself with it, OK?

 

[berzerker60]

Oh, wait... One of Reagan's top economic advisers was a leftist?

Really? I mean fucking Really?

While you are entitled to your own POV, you're not entitled to your own reality. Just step away from the fringe whack propaganda, sir, before you hurt yourself with it, OK?

That was the joke.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

I wonder if the solution to poverty is simply to provide all citizens a basic income.

 

[Jhhnn]

That was the joke.

Fooled me!

Easy, given what I've become accustomed to, huh?

 

[Tom]

The difference of course is the working poor were paying $0 before he got $5000 back.

And the upper middle class person not paying $5000 was previously paying $20000

So the difference is

Upper middle class guy pays $15000
Poor dude pays -$5000

It should be fairly obvious what the difference is between the 2. Mainly the rich people are getting handouts from their own money.

EDIT: And they probably aren't using the EITC to feed themselves. That is what the food stamps they get do

They aren't getting handouts from their own money. It's money they owe in taxes that because they borrow money to buy a house they don't have to pay.

it's exactly the same kind of subsidy as the EIC.

 

[sm625]

The closer you are to the top, the more Fed funny money / monopoly money you are able to acquire just from being where you are. There really is a trickle down effect. The top 100 richest people get 50% of what the Fed prints. Then the top 1000 below them get 50% of the remaining 50%. Then the top 10000 below them get 50% of the remaining 25%. Then the top 100000 below them get 50% of the remaining 12%. Then the top 1000000 below them get 50% of the remaining 6%. By the time the top 1% are done taking their share of the print job, only a small percentage of that money is filtered out into the broad economy. As a result the purchasing power for the bottom 99% is destroyed. But they apparently love being raped like this so I guess its a fair system after all. Anyway, the point is that in the face of this dynamic you cannot simply look at who pays what share of taxes. The money isnt earned. It is printed money.

 

[nehalem256]

They aren't getting handouts from their own money. It's money they owe in taxes that because they borrow money to buy a house they don't have to pay.

it's exactly the same kind of subsidy as the EIC.

They effectively are getting handouts from their own money. They pay $20,000 in tax in then get $5,000 back because they buy a house.

The person on the EITC is paying $0 in taxes and then getting $5,000 in someone else's money.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Of course, since the bottom 55% make less than $30k/year, that's kind of a given. If it costs more than you make just to barely survive, there's not going to be much left for taxation.

 

[werepossum]

Of course, since the bottom 55% make less than $30k/year, that's kind of a given. If it costs more than you make just to barely survive, there's not going to be much left for taxation.

There's a big difference between not taking income tax from the bottom 40% of earners and putting them on welfare under a shiny new name.

 

[PrinceofWands]

There's a big difference between not taking income tax from the bottom 40% of earners and putting them on welfare under a shiny new name.

I'm just saying that when you make the bottom class the largest demographic the fewer above them are naturally going to carry the bulk of the tax burden. If the top wants to pay less then the bottom has to make SIGNIFICANTLY more...which, of course, can only happen if the top makes less.