Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax

[Kadie]

Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer – 30 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.

Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it's still almost always better to file: That's the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers.

In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.

Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year.


more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100407/ap_on_bi_ge/us_no_taxes

[Mari333]

1. no jobs=no revenue. no revenue=destroyed cities, towns, infrastructure

but we spend billions on foreign occupations for the top 1 percent to live in luxury.


the house of empirical cards will fall.

[Critters2]

2. I think about this from time to time. I'm single with no children, and not many deductions.

I know families who pay nothing, and yeah, it kind of rankles me.

[tridim]

4. Yea, I call it the "Singles penalty"

Life is inherently tougher for us, so as a punishment we get to pay more taxes than our married friends.

[Codeine]

8. Folks smart enough not to have kids

get to pay for the filthy snot-nosed offspring of others! Ain't it grand?

[Newsjock]

3. More suck for the childless among us

Y'all oughta be havin' more bay-bees, I say.

:sarcasm:

[noamnety]

5. Yeah, those people living in poverty are really getting one over on everyone else.

ugh

I wish the reporter would concentrate on the people with 90 percent of the money not paying 90 percent of the taxes, instead of acting like those with less than 1% of the money in this country are living the good life.

[Crystal Clarity]

6. Despite what the article implies

there were little to no tax cuts for middle to low income people... certainly not during the Bush years.

The article makes it sound as if the 10 trillion dollar Bush tax cut for the wealthy also somehow accounts for the increase in people (in lower to middle income brackets) who don't have to pay federal income tax. This is not the case. Furthermore, the article makes no mention of Payroll tax inequities that disproportionatly adversly affect lower and middle income folks.

Obama's tax cuts help reverse some of the inequities, but the wealthy still get away with paying far less then their fair share IMO

[NJmaverick]

7. no doubt this number includes many of the anti-tax teabaggers

[951-Riverside]

9. I wish I was one of the 47 percent.

Federal Taxes are killing me.

[CC]

10. There is a cure for that...

make less money.

I decided in my case higher taxes was better than less money since the taxes are only a percentage of that actual money made. I'm not going to complain about taxes when so many would be happy to just have a paycheck to be taxed on.

[Johonny]

11. or way more money :)

The article goes out of its way to get input from the heritage foundation. Then sort of explains why their slant is misleading. Yeah the poor don't pay income tax, but they sure pay all the other regressive taxes. Which the article eventually gets around to explaining. The net result is they often pay a greater percentage of their wages in taxes than the top 1 %. Even thought they can least afford it. I make money, I pay taxes. I got over that fact when I was like 16.

[X_Digger]

12. Shit, I paid $22k last year.

Just got my taxes done yesterday. Just me and the SO, no kids. The only thing on top of the standard deductions we got was the $800 from the stimulus ($400 each) off our taxable income.

Getting $2k back.

I haven't gotten it all back since I was in my 20's, making $25k per year working two jobs.