Here I heard it said that 30 percent don't.  

This is impossible. Maybe if they include children in the percentage, who aren't generally counted.

Just to ask, can anybody believe this stat is honest?



-- Modified on 10/18/2008 10:16:54 PM

Approx 40% of so-called working Americans do not pay Federal Income Tax. Obama talks about a tax cut for 95% of Americans. That includes the 40%. So how do you give a tax cut (aka tax credit) to someone who doesn't pay taxes? Depends on what sound byte Obama or his tax advisors are communicating. Some say that those 40% pay taxes. They do, but it's a Payroll tax, which is Social Security and Medicare. I believe it's about 7.5% for both up to $98K for 2008. These so-called 40% of Americans will not lose Social Security or Medicare benefits when they retire. First, I hate the word Payroll tax, and second you get the money/services back when you retire, and based on expected life expectancy, the majority of Americans will get more than they contribute based on a Net Present Value (NPV).

The top 1% of earned and non-earned income pay approx 40% of all Federal Income Taxes. The top 10% pay approx 75%, and the top 50% pay close to 99%. Most wage earners despise the use of the words "pay your fair share" espoused by liberals, or Joe Biden's recent comment, "the rich need to be more patriotic."

Not that I am voting for Obama, but I would respect him a little more by at least being honest and saying we are giving 40% of the Americans money (welfare) that they did not pay into the system. Hence, Obama's repeated use of the phrase, "spread the wealth around."

Didn't Clinton pass into law, and take credit for it, the Welfare Reform Act back in the mid 1990s? This is one way to skirt that law.

The reason we will never have a flat or fair tax, is that Democrats like to use the tax code as a behavorial based system. This sounds like an oxymoron, but I would even agree to a progressive flat tax within reason, just to eliminate the 100K IRS employees, and piss off CPA's, tax attorney's, H&R Block, Intuit (Turbo Tax), and save each American at least $250 they have to pay preparers each year.

They do pay. The IRS "borrows" from most taxpayers who aren't officially taxed, and IRS doesn't pay interest on the money borrowed through withholding.

You know, we used to have a far more progressive tax system, with 99 percent tax brackets, and with an IRS that had the teeth of a shark. How did people ever ever survive that?

We survived it with a government that was a wonder of the world, between 1950-1970, that's how we "struggled" through it. Those years, not the Reagan years were the most prosperous ever for this country.

No Democrat is proposing a return of the 99 percent tax-bracket.

Your figures on how much the wealthy pay are way off. The top 1 percent make 18 percent of the income and pay 28 percent of the tax revenues. If their marginal utility applied to their cash weren't so high, I would describe them as slightly overtaxed.  

Besides, you act like tax revenues are lost to the economy. No, they circulate back (unless they go to China. Oops!) usually through that same 1 percent, a large number of whom are government contractors, most for defense; that is, judging by the fact that suburbs around Washington DC are some of the wealthiest in the country.  

The reason why we'll never have a flat tax is because it's inherently unfair. You tax 15 percent from somebody making $20,000 a year, and you've probably killed them. Whereas if you tax somebody making $10 million dollars fifteen percent, with some "budgeting," they will make it-- and probably even live in Manhattan.

A flat tax is also like inflation, really. If everyone is taxed 15 percent per year, that's the equivalent of money lost through inflation.

There's no law, no scientific principle that says that people who become rich must deserve it. Apparently, it's true for some, not others.

-- Modified on 10/18/2008 11:48:52 PM

and "Apparently, it's true for some, not others."

What exactly are you saying?

Some, most, all rich people, don't deserve it?

Do you realize that jealousy can be just as nasty as greed? Maybe worse.

or poor. Being rich is a product of capitalist exploitation. Being poor is a product of being exploited by capitalists.

40% is correct according IRS figures and many public policy studies on Income taxes.

You write that "being rich is a product of capitalist exploitation. Being poor is a product of being exploited by capitalists."

Someone once said that frequently the idle rich are not and the working poor don't.

In other words, although "idle rich" is a term bandied about, many, if not most, of the rich are not idle.  The worked for it.  They didn't take it from anyone.  They worked 10 or 12 hours a day building something or providing goods and services that people needed.  From their efforts that gave other people things they wanted, they made money.

Bill Gates made my life easier and made it easier for me to make a better living.  In exchange, I gave him a tiny amount of the extra money he helped me make. He didn't take anything from me.

Conversly, many poor are not working.  "Welfare queen" as a phrase has gone out of style, but it cannot be denied that there are many people who never held a job or tried to get one.  (Many of my clients.)  I am not saying ALL.  It is true that many poor do work and thus are not exploited.  But of those who do work, many of the working poor get out of poverty.

Facinating statistic I saw a few years ago.  There are as many poor Hispanics in California now as there were ten years ago.  That sounds like nothing happened, BUT THINK.

In the past ten years, millions of Hispanic have entered California legally and/or illegally, many with nothing on their backs.  If there are the same number of poor Hispanics, this means that for the number to be the same, for every illegal that crossed over with nothing, one Hispanic moved from poverty to middle class.  

In other words, if it is true that there are as many poor, and it if is true that millions of "new poor" entered, the system is working because those that came five years ago are no longer poor.  

(That is why there is such a huge Hispanic middle and upper class.  They worked and made it.)

Each one who did so moved up not by being exploited, but by working.

Here is the simple math. I have 10 employees earning min wage.
They are all part time employees. I charge $40.00 per hour for their services. I get 33.45 they get 6.55 per hour.I have other costs and other ways to offset these costs. My point is this, Without cheap labor I am out of business. I am exploiting cheap labor to get rich.

not derived from hard science or from economics. Don't give me platitudes about jealousy, this is a simple fact.

It's also a fact that some work for the wealth, some come by it in another way: lottery, inheritance and so forth.

-- Modified on 10/19/2008 9:47:47 AM

Do you have an 'A' or 'B' pension plan for your 10 employees, or a 401K with matching funds to 6%/employee dollar, or profit sharing, or paid vacation, or health care benefits with paid sick days, or paid 12 week family leave act compliance? Do you comply with all OSHA rules, or maybe have an ESPP? If not, then Obama is coming after you, especially after you've made your first $250,000. Cheap labor is going to become much more difficult to come by in the future. Looking at it another way, your employees are getting $6.00 more per hour than if they were still working in the fields of Mexico, Honduras, et al. All, or at least some of the above will take a pretty big chunk out of the $334.50/hour your getting. You'll have to increase the price for your services, and maybe price yourself right out business. Gonna get rich? It's harder than you think. BTW, part time employees at the company where I most recently worked had all the above benefits, plus $1,800/year tuition assistance, free work uniforms, and more that I don't remember.

-- Modified on 10/19/2008 8:06:06 PM