Dear top 1%: Y U No Pay Taxes

[deminks]

[Union Scribe]

1. Lol! Gotta rec any appearance by Y U No

First time I've seen it taken off screen, though. Sweet.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Cool

[Cool Logic]

3. Actually, they pay 38%...

[iamjoy]

4. A Rather Convenient Statistic

One that ignores the Social Security and Medicare taxes. I wish I could find the statistic on how much those amounts contribute to federal revenue coffers. Keep in mind that a minimum wage worker may not pay any federal income taxes because what they earn is too small, but they still have the payroll tax deducted from their check.

[hack89]

10. They pay payroll taxes too so we know it is not zero.

Payroll taxes for 2010 brought in $540 billion for SS and $270 billion for Medicare.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html

[geckosfeet]

5. Yes. Deceptive numbers for the mathematelically challenged.

On edit: to add that the personal sacrifice represented by the taxes paid is not proportional or fair. The numbers also do not detail the composition of the 1% group in any meaningful way (or any other group) - simply providing the threshold income level. Those aggregate numbers mean little without an analysis of the composition of those groups, and the financial impact taxes and other economic realities have on their lives.

Also, personally, not sure I believe that the threshold income level to be a member of the top 1% club is $350k. Franky I think it is much higher.

This kind of deceptive chart making is what fuels the anger for low information/education teabagger type voters. I am actually quite surprised to see it being used to support any position on DU.

[Hoosier Daddy]

12. Righties? Mathematically challenged?

Surely you jest!

:sarcasm:

[Modern_Matthew]

14. I'm mathematically challenged as well.

They can't use that as an excuse for being that damn ignorant. :rofl:

[dems_rightnow]

17. Yeah, what would the IRS know about AGI?

Your beliefs and thoughts make this a tossup with their facts and figures.

Edited to add:

You realize this says "threshold", not "average" or "median"? That is, $380,00 is the poorest of the 1%'ers.

[geckosfeet]

23. Yes - that's what is says alright. In a normal distribution $350 would be

at the extreme tail of the curve. And the mutli-billion $ incomes would be at the other end.

It would be interesting to see how the sources vary across the distribution. I would also like to see the average TAX RATES.

Even this type of cursory analysis, conveniently absent, would help remove some of the taint from this absurd chart.

[former9thward]

21. Since this is coming from the IRS I would think the burden is on you

to tell us the true numbers.

[LiberalFighter]

6. Those figures are misleading

Due to the fact that if a family of four uses only the standard deduction they would have $14,600 in personal tax exemptions and $11,400 in standard deductions for a total of $26,000 in income exempt from the federal tax.

All families with 4 in the household regardless of income would have $26,000 exempt from the federal tax. And those with $26,000 or less in income would bring down the share within the bottom 50% in the above graph because of it. How many of those within the bottom 50% percentile with zero AGI are included?

To suggest that the burden is greater on the wealthier because they pay a greater percentage of the taxes is ludicrous. The reason they pay a greater share is only because they have more income than most everyone else

[Taitertots]

7. That is the most hilariously misleading and inaccurate table I have seen in a long time

The bottom 99% of people pay 61.98% of the INCOME TAX (not the only tax), but do 99% of the work and take home 75% of the gains from their labor.

The real question about your table is does the bottom 50% contain all the people who are unemployed, disabled, retired, in college, in prison,

[hack89]

11. The bottom 50 % only includes tax filers

Why is it misleading? Are the numbers wrong? Aren't they greater then the zero that the OP states?

[Taitertots]

13. It is misleading because it doesn't take into account the distribution of incomes

If you want to avoid being misleading you should compare total tax burden as a percent of income per capita. The bottom 50% pay more as a percent of their income than the top 1%. Of course the totals are lower, the bottom 50% get next to nothing for their labor.


400 people have more wealth that the bottom 50% combined.
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/mar/10/michael-moore/michael-moore-says-400-americans-have-more-wealth-/

[progressoid]

19. +1

[FarLeftFist]

8. ONLY 38%?! That's freaking BS. It should be 50%!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. ...and own twice that percentage of the wealth.

:think:

[starroute]

15. That's true but also misleading

For one thing, the top 1% control somewhere between 38% and 42% of all wealth in the country, so it's not surprising that they pay 38% of all taxes.

But even if you look not at wealth but at annual income, you find that the top 1% earns something like 21-23% of all income. This means, according to http://www.financialsamurai.com/2011/04/12/how-much-money-do-the-top-income-earners-make-percent, that they average an effective tax rate of about 23%.

Combine that with the fact that for someone earning $1 million a year, the effective FICA rate becomes less than 1%, and you have a combined federal tax rate for the top 1% of around 24% -- not very different from the combined rate on a middle-class family. This is hardly what you would call a progressive tax system.

So it's not so much "why u no pay taxes" as it is "why don't you pay taxes proportionate to your wealth and to the share of the nation's expenditures that go directly into protecting that wealth and your way of life?"

[ThoughtCriminal]

18. There is a difference between

Top 1% of wealth and top 1% of income.

[jpgray]

20. How much of the top 1%'s income is taxed as capital gains?

What is the average effective tax rate on their income?

[taught_me_patience]

16. This is just dumb

They do pay taxes, maybe not their fare share, but they do pay taxes.

"If you ain't paying taxes you ain't making money"

[lpbk2713]

22. "Only the little people pay taxes."

Leona Helmsley




What a sweetheart. :eyes:

[brooklynite]

24. I Du Pay Taxes...

My wife and I are top 1% and pay plenty of taxes. The bottom line is whether our tax revenue is adequate to meet our spending (its not) and how the additional taxes should be allocated (we should pay more). Conflating the top income earners with companies that in fact DON'T pay taxes is an inappropriate oversimplification.