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Top 3% of U.S. Taxpayers Paid Majority of Income Taxes in 2016

Renae said:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/glob...xpayers-paid-majority-of-income-taxes-in-2016

And people wonder why a tax cut affects rich people more...
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"The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent)."

The top 1% of Americans control more than 40% of all the wealth in the country. Sounds like their taxes are too low.

The bottom 90% of Americans control less than 14% of total wealth. Sounds like their taxes are massively too high.
 
This thread died in 2018, Certainly doesn't belong in breaking news.
 
jonny5 said:
1 trillion a year in taxes is not almost nothing. IN 2018 the top 10% in the US accounted for about 2.5 trillion in income. And paid almost a trillion in income tax. Just the federal income tax. Add probably another trillion in other federal and local.
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and the death tax is nothing more than a surcharge on the top one percent.
 
Questerr said:
"The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent)."

The top 1% of Americans control more than 40% of all the wealth in the country. Sounds like their taxes are too low.

The bottom 90% of Americans control less than 14% of total wealth. Sounds like their taxes are massively too high.
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why do you have such a hard time understanding INCOME vs WEALTH TAX

lots of people have substantial wealth with little income. Your grandfather starts a farm and leaves it to you. It has appreciated in value substantially because suburbs with 500K houses are cropping up all over the place. The farm only generates 50K in income but has a value of a million. Dems want that taxed as a death tax. Then you have to pay say 50K a year just to keep it because that is the wealth tax.
 
TurtleDude said:
why do you have such a hard time understanding INCOME vs WEALTH TAX

lots of people have substantial wealth with little income. Your grandfather starts a farm and leaves it to you. It has appreciated in value substantially because suburbs with 500K houses are cropping up all over the place. The farm only generates 50K in income but has a value of a million. Dems want that taxed as a death tax. Then you have to pay say 50K a year just to keep it because that is the wealth tax.
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I have a very hard time understanding why people are cool with 86% of all the wealth in the country being in the hands of 10% of the population.
 
Questerr said:
I have a very hard time understanding why people are cool with 86% of all the wealth in the country being in the hands of 10% of the population.
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because the things people such as you would support to change that would cause our society to be ruined. I have a hard time understanding why so many people are envious and think others should pay for what these envious types want. Someone else being rich doesn't cause you to be poor
 
TurtleDude said:
because the things people such as you would support to change that would cause our society to be ruined. I have a hard time understanding why so many people are envious and think others should pay for what these envious types want. Someone else being rich doesn't cause you to be poor
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Except there are other countries where wealth disparity is far more under control and they are by no means “ruined”.

The wealth pie only grows so much every year. Every year the rich eat a bigger and bigger piece of it. Their increasing wealth does in fact make it harder for other people to not be poor.
 
Questerr said:
Except there are other countries where wealth disparity is far more under control and they are by no means “ruined”.

The wealth pie only grows so much every year. Every year the rich eat a bigger and bigger piece of it. Their increasing wealth does in fact make it harder for other people to not be poor.
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as long as investments make money, those of us who make more than we spend will increase our wealth. what exactly is your plan that meets "libertarian" principles? How do people stay poor because I am frugal, invest wisely and don't spend anywhere near what I make? I also pay far more in taxes than I use in government services
 
TurtleDude said:
as long as investments make money, those of us who make more than we spend will increase our wealth. what exactly is your plan that meets "libertarian" principles? How do people stay poor because I am frugal, invest wisely and don't spend anywhere near what I make? I also pay far more in taxes than I use in government services
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I guarantee you are not in the 1%. You aren’t the issue. They are. Billionaires should not exist, period.
 
Questerr said:
I guarantee you are not in the 1%. You aren’t the issue. They are. Billionaires should not exist, period.
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yeah I am. stop lying about things you know nothing about. And you don't have to be a billionaire to be in the top one percent. You sound like you want to kill billionaires. BTW its billionaires who are funding your buddy Senile Joe
 
jonny5 said:
1 trillion a year in taxes is not almost nothing. IN 2018 the top 10% in the US accounted for about 2.5 trillion in income. And paid almost a trillion in income tax. Just the federal income tax. Add probably another trillion in other federal and local.
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Actually, in 2017 the top 10% paid $1.1 trillion in taxes but actually made $5.2 trillion...
 
TurtleDude said:
yeah I am. stop lying about things you know nothing about. And you don't have to be a billionaire to be in the top one percent. You sound like you want to kill billionaires. BTW its billionaires who are funding your buddy Senile Joe
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So a multi-millionaire spends his time posting on a random Internet forum? How ****ing ridiculous.

I HATE Joe Biden. He would never have had my vote in a thousand years if the Republicans had run someone who wasn’t a white supremacist fascist. Part of the reason I hate him is precisely because he’s tight with billionaires.
 
Questerr said:
So a multi-millionaire spends his time posting on a random Internet forum? How ****ing ridiculous.

I HATE Joe Biden. He would never have had my vote in a thousand years if the Republicans had run someone who wasn’t a white supremacist fascist. Part of the reason I hate him is precisely because he’s tight with billionaires.
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yeah, black tie affairs bore me, I don't like eating caviar and the croquet field is too wet to play on. Biden has more support from wall street and silicon valley than Trump does.
 
While we are on the subject of income taxes.... Congress pulled a great trick on the American people and they are just buying it.

While it is neat to report all these facts about "income tax" let's not forget that Social Security and Medicare taxes, which are based on wages but are not included in income tax, makes up 36% Federal revenue while "income taxes" are only 14% more. Just to be clear, the guy making $9 per hour is sacrificing 15.3% of his salary for Medicare and Social Security taxes. The highest earners are only paying the 15.3% on the first $133K, after that it goes down to 2.9% and then back up to 3.8%. Effectively a guy making $50,000 is paying about 14% in FICA taxes and a guy making a $1,000,000 is paying 4.6% in FICA taxes.
I do realize that employers pay half that, but I am an employer and I am not stupid... I know if I can afford to pay someone $100,000 that I am going to subtract out payroll taxes and insurance and they are going to get $74,000.
 
SimpleTom said:
While we are on the subject of income taxes.... Congress pulled a great trick on the American people and they are just buying it.

While it is neat to report all these facts about "income tax" let's not forget that Social Security and Medicare taxes, which are based on wages but are not included in income tax, makes up 36% Federal revenue while "income taxes" are only 14% more. Just to be clear, the guy making $9 per hour is sacrificing 15.3% of his salary for Medicare and Social Security taxes. The highest earners are only paying the 15.3% on the first $133K, after that it goes down to 2.9% and then back up to 3.8%. Effectively a guy making $50,000 is paying about 14% in FICA taxes and a guy making a $1,000,000 is paying 4.6% in FICA taxes.
I do realize that employers pay half that, but I am an employer and I am not stupid... I know if I can afford to pay someone $100,000 that I am going to subtract out payroll taxes and insurance and they are going to get $74,000.
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what exactly does FICA pay for?
 
Most of the top 1% are small business owners. You need wealth of about $11 million to be in the top 1%. That sounds like a lot but wealth and liquidity are two different things. Most of the wealth of the top 10% is stuck in retained earnings for small small to mid sized companies. Which is why the top 1% of wage earners are making about $360,000 per year.
 
TurtleDude said:
what exactly does FICA pay for?
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FICA is the Federal Insurance Contribution Act... It is supposed to pay for Medicare and Social Security but it goes into the general fund with all other tax revenues and gets allotted out. So it goes into the same pot and gets spent like everything else.
ETA: It is still a tax based on income no matter what you spend it on...
 
SimpleTom said:
FICA is the Federal Insurance Contribution Act... It is supposed to pay for Medicare and Social Security but it goes into the general fund with all other tax revenues and gets allotted out. So it goes into the same pot and gets spent like everything else.
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that is true but aren't your social security payments tied to what you paid in? Meaning a guy who makes 150K a year and a guy who makes 250K a year are going to get the same SS payments assuming other things being equal?
 
Questerr said:
I guarantee you are not in the 1%. You aren’t the issue. They are. Billionaires should not exist, period.
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This is a weird DP problem I am facing on a different thread, so I feel compelled to stand up to it here. On what basis could you possibly "guarantee" that? You have no way of knowing. Discourse would be much more intelligent if posters stopped positively asserting statements they make out of their ###.
 
Questerr said:
"The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent)."

The top 1% of Americans control more than 40% of all the wealth in the country. Sounds like their taxes are too low.

The bottom 90% of Americans control less than 14% of total wealth. Sounds like their taxes are massively too high.
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It seems that you would prefer to have a federal tax on wealth, rather than (or in addition to?) income. For such a tax to reduce wealth inequality, it would have to exceed one’s total (annual) income. That would require (allow?) congress to decide at what point someone’s “excess” wealth should be taken (for redistribution?) simply because they are deemed to have “too much” wealth.
 
MTAtech said:
That article is obsolete because Trump and the GOP substantially lowered income taxes on that group in 2017.
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Which makes them still pay the majority of the Fed income tax even still?
 
Luther said:
Which makes them still pay the majority of the Fed income tax even still?
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The top 1% do not pay a majority of income taxes. According to the Tax Foundations analysis of 2016 taxes (before the GOP lowered taxes on the rich)
37.3% isn't a majority and that percentage is lower after the GOP cut their taxes. They pay more a larger percentage of income taxes because they have a larger percent of income.
 
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