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

jonny5 said:
Source?

We're talking about income tax, not payroll tax. Payroll tax only pays for part of medicare and social security, which everyone is entitled to get back. Yes, that is a fairer tax and therefore each individual pays a more fair share. But income tax pays for 99% of govt functions, and the fact is 1% of citizens pay for half of that. Half of all citizens pay for almost all of it.
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First, it was your source... You provided the link I just happened to have a bunch of analysis already done on that data so I used that.
Next, why are we talking about income tax not payroll tax? Money is fungible and your assertion is rather ridiculous. It is a tax based solely on the money you earn, a.k.a. an income tax. Furthermore, the assertion that you shouldn't count that as tax because the government gives you a benefit is rather shortsighted. Which tax dollars do you not get a benefit for? Why don't you subtract out all benefits available to every person when you calculate their tax incidence... Then you can claim we all pay no taxes.
 
jonny5 said:
Thus half of citizens are paying almost nothing for almost all of whats the govt does. You can nitpick the numbers to get the result you want, but that math wont change, no matter how you check it. Rich individuals bear an overwhelming burden for the funding of this country. And 75% of spending is going to social programs which almost entirely benefit those 50% paying nearly nothing. Which is a whole other problem.
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Well this is not really correct.
I hate conversations of income disparity because it is largely people railing against an unfair world and attempting to fix things that they only comprehend at the most basic level. The reason that many of the ultra wealthy don't care is because they understand money creation. Do you think only the 1% are buying things from Amazon? Do you know what happens if you take Jeff Bezos' money and give it to a bunch of poor people? Those people give it back to Jeff Bezos either directly or indirectly and you are going to end up with the exact same wealth disparity problem that we have today only poor people get a better pair of shoes. Do you really believe that life would be better for food producers if we stopped subsidizing food? Do you really believe that landlords would be better off if we stopped subsidizing housing?
It isn't taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor... It is subsidizing the rich through the poor and doing it rather badly. I used to be involved in a real estate investment trust that did lower income apartment buildings in some larger cities. Probably half of our income came from HUD through a program that you would certainly call an entitlement. It was well into seven figures a year and none of us were poor and I suspect we were all in that 10% income bracket. Without that program the rents would drop by 30% to 40% and we would have lost our butts... I am sure that we couldn't manage to be in that 10% bracket after that.
So it isn't quite so simple as these programs are paid for by the rich and benefit the poor, it never has been... but complexity and nuance don't fit so well on bumper stickers and so people tend to ignore it.
 
jonny5 said:
Im including entitlements.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/historical-tables/ Table 3.1

We spend 3.1 trillion on "Human resources" which includes

Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services 136,752
Health 584,816
Medicare 650,996
Income Security 514,787
Social Security 1,044,409
Veterans Benefits and Services 199,843

Thats 80% of all spending (4.4 Trillion)

Subtract the VA, thats about 75%.
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If you include SS, you are including a whole lot of taxes paid by ordinary Americans, and a whole lot of payments back to those same types of Americans. Seems totally at odds with this statement: "And 75% of spending is going to social programs which almost entirely benefit those 50% paying nearly nothing."
 
Moderate Right said:
When the left cry out that the rich should pay their fair share it just makes me puke.
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There is merit to that statement whether or not you want to recognize it.
Ultra rich Americans are heavily subsidized by government, so the idea that they need to pay their fair share is reasonable. Most of the people getting subsidies to live are not the unemployed, they are the working poor. At some point in the past we made a decision to help out corporations by subsidizing their workforce. We shouldn't then get mad at that workforce for working 40 hours per week and still qualifying for assistance.
 
SimpleTom said:
First, it was your source... You provided the link I just happened to have a bunch of analysis already done on that data so I used that.
Next, why are we talking about income tax not payroll tax? Money is fungible and your assertion is rather ridiculous. It is a tax based solely on the money you earn, a.k.a. an income tax. Furthermore, the assertion that you shouldn't count that as tax because the government gives you a benefit is rather shortsighted. Which tax dollars do you not get a benefit for? Why don't you subtract out all benefits available to every person when you calculate their tax incidence... Then you can claim we all pay no taxes.
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Because the topic is income tax.
 
SimpleTom said:
Well this is not really correct.
I hate conversations of income disparity because it is largely people railing against an unfair world and attempting to fix things that they only comprehend at the most basic level. The reason that many of the ultra wealthy don't care is because they understand money creation. Do you think only the 1% are buying things from Amazon? Do you know what happens if you take Jeff Bezos' money and give it to a bunch of poor people? Those people give it back to Jeff Bezos either directly or indirectly and you are going to end up with the exact same wealth disparity problem that we have today only poor people get a better pair of shoes. Do you really believe that life would be better for food producers if we stopped subsidizing food? Do you really believe that landlords would be better off if we stopped subsidizing housing?
It isn't taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor... It is subsidizing the rich through the poor and doing it rather badly. I used to be involved in a real estate investment trust that did lower income apartment buildings in some larger cities. Probably half of our income came from HUD through a program that you would certainly call an entitlement. It was well into seven figures a year and none of us were poor and I suspect we were all in that 10% income bracket. Without that program the rents would drop by 30% to 40% and we would have lost our butts... I am sure that we couldn't manage to be in that 10% bracket after that.
So it isn't quite so simple as these programs are paid for by the rich and benefit the poor, it never has been... but complexity and nuance don't fit so well on bumper stickers and so people tend to ignore it.
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It literally is taking money from the rich via taxes on labor, and literally writing a check to the poor via food stamps, welfare checks, healthcare payments, etc. Yes, its thats simple no matter how many bumper stickers it needs to fit.
 
skeptic llc said:
If you include SS, you are including a whole lot of taxes paid by ordinary Americans, and a whole lot of payments back to those same types of Americans. Seems totally at odds with this statement: "And 75% of spending is going to social programs which almost entirely benefit those 50% paying nearly nothing."
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Sure, but if you consider tax credits, 0% tax rates, and the millions wont dont work, plus the fact that SS only accounts for 25% and is generally canceled, youre still left with the same basic result. The bottom 50% pay relatively nothing and reap the overhwheming benefit. In 2016 for example, the lowest 20% accounted for .1% of tax liability. Yet the cost of defending the country, law and order, justice, maintaining infrastructure, all those costs still have to be paid. Im not advocating for them to have to pay more, as they probably cant, but I think everyone should at least acknoweledge WHO is actually funding this country. And this just the federal level. Trillions more are paid at the local level, with the same basic formula.

www.taxpolicycenter.org

Historical Shares of Federal Tax Liabilities for All Households

Shares of federal tax liabilities for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile.
www.taxpolicycenter.org www.taxpolicycenter.org
 
jonny5 said:
Because the topic is income tax.
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Yes...
Income - money (or some equivalent value) that an individual or business receives, usually in exchange for providing a good or service or through investing capital.
Tax - a compulsory contribution to revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.

Social Security and Medicare tax literally appear on the 1040 for millions of Americans, Form 1040 line 12b on the 2019 form. If you are going to say that a tax levied on income that appears on the exact same form as income tax but is calculated separately is not income tax. Then here is a list of other not income taxes. The alternative minimum tax, taxes on tax favored IRA accounts, tax for qualified dividends and capital gains, the net investment income tax, the additional social security and Medicare Tax. All of those taxes, are calculated separately and appear on line 12a or 12b also of the 2019 form.

Seriously, what else would you like to limit the definition of to whatever you want it to be?
 
Just to be abundantly clear... There is no such thing as an official "income tax" there is only title 26 of the U.S. code. Which includes several taxation provisions including taxes on earned income and taxes on unearned income. At some point in the past the decision was made to exclude flat rate income taxes from the discussion and so sheeple just accepted that flat rate income taxes were not income taxes.
 
SimpleTom said:
Yes...
Income - money (or some equivalent value) that an individual or business receives, usually in exchange for providing a good or service or through investing capital.
Tax - a compulsory contribution to revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.

Social Security and Medicare tax literally appear on the 1040 for millions of Americans, Form 1040 line 12b on the 2019 form. If you are going to say that a tax levied on income that appears on the exact same form as income tax but is calculated separately is not income tax. Then here is a list of other not income taxes. The alternative minimum tax, taxes on tax favored IRA accounts, tax for qualified dividends and capital gains, the net investment income tax, the additional social security and Medicare Tax. All of those taxes, are calculated separately and appear on line 12a or 12b also of the 2019 form.

Seriously, what else would you like to limit the definition of to whatever you want it to be?
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I would like to limit it to the topic, which is income tax, and not payroll tax.
 
SimpleTom said:
Just to be abundantly clear... There is no such thing as an official "income tax" there is only title 26 of the U.S. code. Which includes several taxation provisions including taxes on earned income and taxes on unearned income. At some point in the past the decision was made to exclude flat rate income taxes from the discussion and so sheeple just accepted that flat rate income taxes were not income taxes.
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Sure, but we know what we're talking about.
 
jonny5 said:
Sure, but if you consider tax credits, 0% tax rates, and the millions wont dont work, plus the fact that SS only accounts for 25% and is generally canceled, youre still left with the same basic result. The bottom 50% pay relatively nothing and reap the overhwheming benefit. In 2016 for example, the lowest 20% accounted for .1% of tax liability. Yet the cost of defending the country, law and order, justice, maintaining infrastructure, all those costs still have to be paid. Im not advocating for them to have to pay more, as they probably cant, but I think everyone should at least acknoweledge WHO is actually funding this country. And this just the federal level. Trillions more are paid at the local level, with the same basic formula.
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Just to be clear, the bottom 50% of tax filers accounted for 12.1% of all income, while the top 5% accounted for 63.3% of all income. The bottom 21.2% of filers accounted for 2% of all income. Do you think there might be a reason the top 5% are paying so much and bottom 21.2% are paying so little?
 
jonny5 said:
I would like to limit it to the topic, which is income tax, and not payroll tax.
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Tough luck. Why don't we just limit to capital gains taxes and we can pretend that the wealthy pay all of the taxes period. I would like to limit the discussion to contributions to the Federal government based on income... WHICH IS INCOME TAX USING ANY REASONABLE DEFINITION!
 
SimpleTom said:
Just to be clear, the bottom 50% of tax filers accounted for 12.1% of all income, while the top 5% accounted for 63.3% of all income. The bottom 21.2% of filers accounted for 2% of all income. Do you think there might be a reason the top 5% are paying so much and bottom 21.2% are paying so little?
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The reason is because the law says so. The topic is whether its unreasonable for the rich to get a greater benefit from a tax cut, and as a tangent, whether taxing them so much more is fair.
 
SimpleTom said:
Tough luck. Why don't we just limit to capital gains taxes and we can pretend that the wealthy pay all of the taxes period. I would like to limit the discussion to contributions to the Federal government based on income... WHICH IS INCOME TAX USING ANY REASONABLE DEFINITION!
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We dont limit to capital gains because the topic is income tax, which includes capital gains taxes, but not payroll taxes. Nor corporate taxes for that matter.
 
jonny5 said:
We dont limit to capital gains because the topic is income tax, which includes capital gains taxes, but not payroll taxes. Nor corporate taxes for that matter.
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There is no such thing as income tax. What we commonly refer to as income tax is actually Estimated income taxes, which includes capital gains rates and earned income rates on adjusted income. FICA, net investment taxes and premium taxes are not Estimated income taxes but fixed income taxes. They are still income taxes.
You are making a case that the burden of supporting our government comes primarily from high earning individuals, which is fine. Make that point... But don't start ignoring contributions to the Federal government that contradict your point. You are not saying that the rich pay too much in taxes, you are saying that they shoulder a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Feel free to make that case but don't do it by ignoring a tremendous amount of that tax burden (36% of it).
 
SimpleTom said:
There is no such thing as income tax. What we commonly refer to as income tax is actually Estimated income taxes, which includes capital gains rates and earned income rates on adjusted income. FICA, net investment taxes and premium taxes are not Estimated income taxes but fixed income taxes. They are still income taxes.
You are making a case that the burden of supporting our government comes primarily from high earning individuals, which is fine. Make that point... But don't start ignoring contributions to the Federal government that contradict your point. You are not saying that the rich pay too much in taxes, you are saying that they shoulder a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Feel free to make that case but don't do it by ignoring a tremendous amount of that tax burden (36% of it).
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We both know what we're talking about. So address it. Do you disagree that its unfair for a small minority of citizens to pay for most of the federal govts spending, and for most of that spending to go to the majority who dont?
 
jonny5 said:
The reason is because the law says so. The topic is whether its unreasonable for the rich to get a greater benefit from a tax cut, and as a tangent, whether taxing them so much more is fair.
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That is not the topic. You don't even know the case you are making. You are saying the rich shoulder an unreasonable portion of the tax burden and are not saying anything about taxes being fair. As for fair. No tax is fair. Someone will always be screwed by taxes, this the problem of perspective. Taxes will either be unfair or inequitable and likely be both to some extent, but you can't design a system that is fair and equitable because of differences in purchasing power.
As for unreasonable... Yes the tax cut was unreasonable. We are running our government in a way that none of us would find acceptable to run our homes. My son recently graduated college and got a great job, would it be reasonable for me to go out and get a credit card in his name and run it up but refuse to pay. If we had corresponding spending cuts then I would be all for tax cuts for the wealthy, I am in a high tax bracket and love the idea of more money... I will even commit to spending it at small businesses if you want. However, without spending cuts we are just running up our kids' credit card and that is despicable.
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By the way...
The problem isn't taxing the rich more and giving it to the poor. The problem is taxing the rich more and through inefficiency and corruption it not getting to the poor. I am pretty well off, I have a bunch of renters right now who are less so. If you give them more money, they are just going to give it back to me.
 
The American dream is about working hard to give your kids a better life then you had. If you succeed, who will do the work you did in the next generation? Answer is the same as it always has been, import cheap labor, slavery or a class based society. Unless you want a permanent under class, we need cheap labor every generation.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Yep, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates should be tried for extreme exploitation, found extremely guilty, executed and their estates taken over by the government. ;)
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Or instead taken over by their workers to be democratically managed as a worker cooperative.
 
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