[boriscleto]

10 Inconvenient Truths for Tax Day | Crooks and Liars

Here, then, are 10 Inconvenient Truths for Tax Day:

1. Over 95% of Working Households Got Tax Cuts
2. Only 2% of Tea Baggers Know Obama Cut Their Taxes...
3. ...and 52% of Tea Partiers Think Their Taxes are Fair...
4. ...and Think the Federal Tax Level is Over Double What It Is
5. 1% of Families Earned 24% of All Income...
6. ...and 57% of All Capital Income
7. 400 Richest Taxpayers Saw Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
8. Only 1 in 500 Families Pay the Estate Tax
9. Corporate Taxes Have Plummeted as a Share of GDP
10. The U.S. Loses $345 Billion a Year to Tax Evasion and Fraud

[gokenin]

are numbers 2 & 3 really relevant in a thread called truths about tax day? what diffrence do theses two items make when it comes to people thinking about taxes? just my two cents

10 Inconvenient Truths for Tax Day | Crooks and Liars

Here, then, are 10 Inconvenient Truths for Tax Day:

1. Over 95% of Working Households Got Tax Cuts
2. Only 2% of Tea Baggers Know Obama Cut Their Taxes...
3. ...and 52% of Tea Partiers Think Their Taxes are Fair...
4. ...and Think the Federal Tax Level is Over Double What It Is
5. 1% of Families Earned 24% of All Income...
6. ...and 57% of All Capital Income
7. 400 Richest Taxpayers Saw Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
8. Only 1 in 500 Families Pay the Estate Tax
9. Corporate Taxes Have Plummeted as a Share of GDP
10. The U.S. Loses $345 Billion a Year to Tax Evasion and Fraud

You/they left out another "inconvenient" truth

The Income Tax System is Broken - CBS News

An astonishing 43.4 percent of Americans now pay zero or negative federal income taxes. The number of single or jointly-filing "taxpayers" - the word must be applied sparingly - who pay no taxes or receive government handouts has reached 65.6 million, out of a total of 151 million.

So that means the rest of us must pay for them too. And now we can add their healthcare also.

And just for giggles

The Tax Foundation - Number of Americans Outside the Income Tax System Continues to Grow

Number of Americans Outside the Income Tax System Continues to Grow

by Scott A. Hodge

Fiscal Fact No. 27

One of the biggest obstacles facing President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform is the fact that America has become divided between a growing class of people who pay no income taxes and a shrinking class of people who are bearing the lion’s share of the burden.

Despite the charges of critics that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the “rich,” these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers. Tax Foundation economists estimate that for tax year 2004, a record 42.5 million Americans who filed a tax return (one-third of the 131 million returns filed last year) had no tax liability after they took advantage of their credits and deductions. Millions more paid next to nothing.

As Figure 1 and Table 1 show, the number of Americans who paid no income taxes because of the preferences in the tax code has varied greatly since 1950. While the number of these “non-payers” has averaged about 22 percent of all filers over the past five decades, it has spiked to record levels in recent years and the trend line does not appear to be slowing.

[deadwolfbones]

George:

Stewart And Leonhardt, Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together | The New Republic

David Leonhardt has an excellent dissection of the conservative talking point du jour that 47% of Americans don't pay income taxes:

* The 47 percent number is not wrong. The stimulus programs of the last two years — the first one signed by President George W. Bush, the second and larger one by President Obama — have increased the number of households that receive enough of a tax credit to wipe out their federal income tax liability.

* But the modifiers here — federal and income — are important. Income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay. There are also payroll taxes and capital gains taxes, among others. And, of course, people pay state and local taxes, too.

* Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47.

[Rupert]

are numbers 2 & 3 really relevant in a thread called truths about tax day? what diffrence do theses two items make when it comes to people thinking about taxes? just my two cents

They are relevant because although the "Tea Party" types are only a small fraction of the population, the produce most of the noise about being robbed by taxes. Statistics and facts show otherwise, but like old George here, and his companion FAUX News, they never let the facts get in their way of constantly slamming "anything Obama". As used above, they are a good reference to why we hear so much nonsense about taxes when the bulk of it is not even true.
Best Regards!

George:

Stewart And Leonhardt, Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together | The New Republic

What I quoted talked about INCOME taxes. And that is true. Many filers that have federal income taxes withheld from their check get that entire amount back. And in many cases get even more back. Especially if they are child factories. Spitting one out every 18 months. And let's face it if you're getting more than what you paid in you're mitigating many of the other federal taxes.

On the same point:

PolitiFact | Thompson's tax numbers add up

Five percent of Americans pay over half the income taxes in this country. Forty percent of Americans pay no income taxes at all."

Fred Thompson on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 in debate in Johnston, Iowa
Thompson's tax numbers add up

Fred Thompson, in arguing that the tax cuts of the Bush administration should be renewed, said that 5 percent of Americans pay over half the income taxes in this country, and that 40 percent of Americans pay no income taxes at all.

Both figures are true.

The top 5 percent of all payers do pay more than half the income tax. They pay about 59.2 percent of all individual income tax, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan institute run jointly by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

Thompson also said that 40 percent of Americans pay no income tax. This claim is supported by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group that promotes transparency in the tax code and economic growth.

There's a small caveat to the 40 percent number — it includes nonfilers, typically taxpayers who don't have to file returns because their incomes are too low. It's logical to assume that most nonfilers don't pay income taxes, but it's possible that some did if they had income taxes withheld by an employer. This is probably a very small number, because people with low incomes have an economic incentive to file a return and get a refund.

The U.S. income tax system is progressive, which means that rates increase as income increases. Given that structure, it makes sense that people with higher incomes pay more taxes, and people with low incomes might pay no tax at all. Thompson's numbers are on the money, and we rate them True.

[Parallax]

Especially if they are child factories. Spitting one out every 18 months.

Damn, they do things slow in Florida. It isn't uncommon some places for people to have some of their 8-10 kids share a birth year without being twins.

Damn, they do things slow in Florida. It isn't uncommon some places for people to have some of their 8-10 kids share a birth year without being twins.

Actually I was quoting statistics from S. Dakota.

[Parallax]

Actually I was quoting statistics from S. Dakota.

Oh, I wasn't implying that people from Florida are slow or anything.

And for the liberals out there:

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 broadly lowered income, capital gains, dividends, and estate taxes. Fanning the lie that only the rich benefited, liberal economists Peter Orszag and William Gale described the Bush tax cuts as reverse-government redistribution of wealth, "[shifting] the burden of taxation away from upper-income, capital-owning households and toward the wage-earning households of the lower and middle classes." This criticism stuck so well that it is difficult to find a liberal today who doesn't believe that these tax relief measures were anything more than "tax cuts for the rich."

But the data does not support this conclusion. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Bush tax cuts actually shifted the total tax burden farther toward the rich so that in 2000-2004, total income tax paid by the top 40% of income-earners grew by 4.6% to 99.1% of the total.

And gee it's from those folks you libs like to always quote the CBO.

American Thinker: Lying About Bush's Tax Cuts

In fact, the Bush tax cuts actually increased government revenue. According to economist Brian Reidl of the Heritage Foundation, The Laffer Curve (upon which much of the supply-side theory is based) merely formalizes the common sense observations that

* 1. Tax revenues depend on the tax base as well as the tax rate,
* 2. Raising tax rates discourages the taxed behavior and therefore shrinks the tax base, offsetting some of the revenue gains, and
* 3. Lowering tax rates encourages the taxed behavior and expands the tax base, offsetting some of the revenue loss.


If policymakers intend cigarette taxes to discourage smoking, then they should know that high investment taxes will discourage investment and income taxes will discourage work. Lowering taxes encourages people to engage in the given behavior, which expands the base and replenishes some or all of the lost revenue. This is the "feedback effect" of a tax cut.

[causey]

Listen to the voices of the TEA PARTY.

[GeneV]

And for the liberals out there:



And gee it's from those folks you libs like to always quote the CBO.

I'm not sure that CBO stat means what you think it means. How much of that increase in percentage is due to the fact that the top earners have made a larger share of the income? If earners in the bottom half of the population do not see much increase in income, while the top half does, then the percentage of tax paid by the top half will increase even if their tax rate is cut. All this may really show is that wealth disparity increased.

[shooz]

And for the liberals out there:



And gee it's from those folks you libs like to always quote the CBO.

American Thinker: Lying About Bush's Tax Cuts

Proof being in the pudding and all.
How come it didn't work?

[Rupert]

Listen to the voices of the TEA PARTY.

I only listened to a few, maybe they were or weren't representative of the whole, but I can understand their frustrations, most all of us share in at least some of their concerns. If they want to have any real impact on change, they first have to know what the change is they are asking for....."our govt spends too much" is not a solution, it is a problem. Another roadblock in their having an impact is the lack of inclusion of minorities in their group, as if minorities don't have any concerns or problems they would like addressed? If it is not inclusive of all people of America, it is destined for failure.
Attacking Obama as "Socialist" etc. when they don't even know the definition of the term is also counterproductive and self defeating. Too many of these people have never been involved in politics, but now fashion themselves as self proclaimed experts on everything from the economy to foreign affairs, an unlikely event.

Keith Olbermann had a good story last night, that diagrammed the birth of the Tea Party movement, and backed it up with written documents that showed how many of these people have been used and abused by money grubbing self gratifying con men. Worth watching even if you hate Olbermann....the facts are there for the viewing. It is still hard for me to see how carrying an Obama/Monkey sign is going to bring change to America? Ranting about problems without solutions is what the Republicans did with Healthcare........and they now see where that got them.........
Just my observations, yours of course, may vary.
Best Regards!

[B Grace]

And for the liberals out there:



And gee it's from those folks you libs like to always quote the CBO.

American Thinker: Lying About Bush's Tax Cuts

Okay, there are several factors in play here but important ones include:

1) Turnover or "churn" of money in the economy. By reducing tax rates across the board, Bush and Reagan before him, took dollars out of the inefficient Federal government stream ($800 hammers?) and placed them in the private sector which will always have a higher velocity of churn and therefore more tax dollars paid due to more transactions taking place. And, frankly, I would rather there be 20 citizens earning a living wage outside of the Federal government than 5 government workers within the system.

2) There is a difference between someone being wealthy and someone having a high income. High income earners saw their incomes increase during the Bush years. Some folks may always believe there is a sinister plot involved but the truth is the high income earners saw their personal markets increase in scope and breadth. In order to earn more money there had to be more money being spent hence a larger economy.

3) Sure, the tax burden shifted to the highest of income earners due to their higher incomes. Isn't that what the folks espousing progressive tax policies want?

Eventually, we'll realize that in order to create new jobs that are not within our Federal government all of us will have to spend more of the money we have. Again, President Obama promised he wouldn't raise income taxes on Americans earning less than $250k per year. I'm still waiting for the legislation that will make this happen by extending the Bush tax cuts for those of us in that group.