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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (33232)	2/24/2009 4:02:07 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

First of all where is your proof of the reverse? I tore down the arguments in the article you linked to and quoted, and you just ignored all of that. As for my evidence ------ When one compares the portion of taxes paid by Americans of various income brackets to their corresponding portion of the nation’s income earned, wealthier Americans actually pay more than their fair share. And once again, the latest Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) numbers prove that. This month, the IRS’s income statistics division released its latest data comparing the amount of income earned by various segments of the income ladder against the amount of taxes paid by those same segments. And what do they reveal? According to the statistics, the richest 1% of American taxpayers (those earning above $389,000) earned 22% of the nation’s reported income. But their share of the nation’s income taxes was 40%. In other words, the wealthiest 1% of Americans’ income tax payments are almost twice as much as their “fair share.” The same is true for other income levels as well. According to the IRS data, the wealthiest 5% of Americans earned 37% of the nation’s income, but paid some 60% of the nation’s income taxes. The top 25% of Americans earned 68% of the nation’s income, but paid 86% of the nation’s taxes. And astonishingly, the top 50% of American earners brought in 88% of income dollars, but paid 97% of all income taxes in this country. Thus, half of the American population is paying almost the entirety of income taxes. cfif.org -------------------- You want to include payroll taxes? Well then you should include all taxes including a share of the taxes that corporations pay (if the rich person owns .5% of some corporation, and that company pays $10mil in corporate income taxes then he's effectively paid $50k). But even not counting that indirect taxation the rich still pay more -- The Progressivity of the Tax System The CBO has released a new report on effective tax rates (total taxes divided by total income). Compared with previous reports, it includes more information about thin slices at the top of the income distribution. Here are the total effective federal tax rates for 2005, the most recent year available: Lowest quintile: 4.3 percent Second quintile: 9.9 percent Middle quintile: 14.2 percent Fourth quintile: 17.4 percent Percentiles 81-90: 20.3 percent Percentiles 91-95: 22.4 percent Percentiles 96-99: 25.7 percent Percentiles 99.0-99.5: 29.7 percent Percentiles 99.5-99.9: 31.2 percent Percentiles 99.9-99.99: 32.1 percent Top 0.01 Percentile: 31.5 percent N.B.: These figures include all federal taxes, not just income taxes. gregmankiw.blogspot.com