**The IRS analyzed the 400 tax returns with the highest adjusted gross income for the years 1992-2000. This group reported income of nearly $69.6 billion in 2000, up from $18.7 billion nine years earlier.**
so the poor, oppressed rich's income about rose 300% in 9 years? yes, let's do something to help them! they need a break - it is expensive to count all that money!!! -lol-
**So yes, the rich did get richer during the Clinton years. But so did a lot of other people.**
the relevance?
**The most revealing part of the study, however, has to do with who makes up the top 400. They're not the same people every year, though you'd have to read deep into most of the news stories to find this out. According to the IRS press release, "Over the nine tax years . . . a total of 3,600 returns were identified for the table. Of the taxpayers who appear in this group of 3,600 returns, less than 25 percent appear more than once, and less than 13 percent appear more than twice." In plainer English, the 400 richest Americans keep changing from year to year, as the nearby chart shows. No fewer than 2,218 separate filers joined the elite group at least once.**
totally false. highest income does not equal richest american. there are too many ways to manipulate incomes. annual incomes are a small portion of wealth anyway. the largest portion is assets, which was conveniently manipulated out of the equation.
**This turnover reflects the fact that most of these high earners are reporting income from the sale of capital assets, rather than from wages and salaries.**
agreed, and where did bush want to hack taxes? on the sale of capital assets where the big boys make most of their income!
**In many cases they are cashing in on a lifetime of wealth accumulated from risk-taking on a business**
where is the risk in company offered stock options? give me a break. this is a slanted article.
**or from saving and investment. But for the IRS -- and for journalists who don't know the difference between wealth and income -- these people become "rich," even if it's just for one year.**
actually, this guy knows the difference, but distorts it. it isn't like once you've been tagged rich that you then pay a different tax structure than everyone else. you are in the same system. if you make less the following year, you pay less. come one, the richest 400 people's income rose 300% in nine years! that's the NEWS and this guy's only comment was "other people have gotten richer, too."
is he biased? -lol-
**One irony is that the 1997 capital gains tax cut may actually have boosted federal revenue by inducing more of the rich to sell their long-held assets. And it's difficult to accuse this group of not paying its fair share. In 1992 the top 400's earnings represented 0.52% of the country's reported income, yet they carried 1.04% of the tax burden. By 2000, they earned 1.1% of the income but paid 1.6% of the taxes.**
BUT HOW MUCH OF AMERICA'S WEALTH DO THESE PEOPLE OWN? OWN WILL DIE BEFORE A HACK LIKE THIS WOULD DISCUSS THAT ISSUE!
even the statistics, manipulated as they are, show the tax burden on the wealthiest income earners as a percent of income is down about 50% in nine years.
**It's also worth noting that the 1990s' trend is one we've seen through both Republican and Democratic administrations. The share of income going to the wealthy rises whether we raise or lower taxes, which indicates that forces in the economy far beyond the reach of tax policy are at work.**
this is contrary to what the right wing whiners say... raise taxes and all the wealthy people will stop working... this article says that isn't true.
**The real problem for liberals and their media acolytes is that they've created a progressive tax system that is more and more dependent on all of these rich folks.**
actually, the tax burden on the top 400 dropped about 50% as a percentage of their income to the population (1.04 is 100% more than 0.52, and 1.6 is less than 50% above 1.1% - the trend is currently down).
**Just ask California Governor Gray Davis,**
gray davis is a total idiot and an anomoly. 50%+ of a democratic state want to oust his sorry butt. he has about an 80% non approval rating. yes, using an outlier to prove a point is not above this hack.
**who's facing a $38 billion budget deficit after watching his revenue windfall from capital gains and stock options disappear with the bursting bubble that collapsed the incomes of all those high-earners in Silicon Valley and Hollywood.**
ironically, this guy is wrong adn uneducated. income in california is up 25% since 1999. yes, income is up. there was no collapse of income in this state. it was mismanagement of spending that screwed us - mostly on energy, but there were other problems, too.
**That state's steeply progressive tax code was a political sucker game during the boom, fooling the politicians into thinking they could spend more than they should have. Now the state is paying for this "progressive" self-delusion.**
spending too much is different than who is taxed at what rates. totally different. gray davis was an idiot outlier - not the norm. it is false and unethical to use him to prove a point that, apparently, can't be proved by how dean runs his state. the "ultra liberal" runs a tight financial ship. why not discuss him? doesn't prooftext this joker's point, that's why.
**But this heavy liberal dependence on the upper brackets is true at the federal level, too, where the top 1% of earners paid 37% of income taxes in 2000, while the top-earning 25% -- those making $55,000 and above -- paid a whopping 84%.**
and they own about 37% and 84% of the stuff, respectively.
but this clown doesn't want to discuss that. honest discussion is not his intent. political hack job is.
i'm not for taxes. i'm for disciplined spending and rewards to all taxpayers. i think that taxes should approximate the amount of wealth owned and that's fair.
the current system doesn't do this perfectly, but its close - even though this idiot used a non applicable argument to argue otherwise.
**Judging from this, you'd think liberals would love income inequality. Their government financing system depends on it.**
again, this guy never discussed income tax percent to wealth percent.
i know why. his argument disappears into nothingness. |
