45% of households pay no federal taxes?

In the news today was this article indicating that 45% of households pay no federal taxes. Very surprising to me. Is this general knowledge?

Link to article

And the top 2% of income earners pays about 45% of all taxes….give or take

Yeah that’s kind of old news. One day the wife and I were talking about this and we started counting and at least 1/2 of the people on my street don’t work.

Lower income brackets still pay social security, just not federal income tax.

I recently saw a chart of the ratio of the federal money recieved to spent ratio for every state. A lot of states it was 1:2 or so.

yes, very old news.

A good question for politicians is just how much of one person’s income is it right to take and give to somebody else.

Progressive – ” old indian name for socialist”

Pal

Just kinda makes me feel good knowing I can help out our overspending government.

to quote an old bob dylan song, “it ain’t me babe”! i can only wish i didn’t have to pay taxes!

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And the top 2% of income earners pays about 45% of all taxes….give or take

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Where did you get this stat ??? According to the article, the millionaires are skirting tax laws also, by claiming around 20% of their wealth through actual wages and the rest as capital gains, which has a lower tax base. Can you link where you found out this info…(I always heard the working middle class paid the bulk) ????

big G

This is just a symptom of every year congress thinks it needs to introduce new bills, laws and regulations that need funding. It makes me wonder, will one year congress finally say, “You know what guys? We’re good”.

If the federal government doesn’t get pared down drastically, and I mean drastically up to 50%, we will never be a prosperous nation again. This nation was founded on individuals and as the federal government grows, we move further and further from that. The power moves from the states and it has already. Further from our sight. We are at the mercy of the Feds because we basically have to bite our tongue to get money back that we put in.

Or the Feds can also do what they did with the stimulus and TARP. Use billions of ‘imaginary’ money to ‘stimulate’ the economy and ‘bailout’ corporations and banks. Never mind where that money is going to come from to pay it. If we can’t find it, we’ll print it and lower everyone’s standard of living.

Responsibility needs to be passed back down to the local level and on the shoulders of its citizens. That is the only way to get a responsible government back.

Why do we in our corner of the nation send our money to a federal level to be (re)distributed on a whim or based on contributions to national campaigns. Congress almost to a man has no concept of the amount of money that they are spending.

I know that will never happen.

I don’t claim to be a righty who knows exactly what the founding fathers thought or desired in their newly founded country. But I can’t help but think they would puke spending one day in congress and seeing how things are run now. It seems the theme for them was individuals and freedoms, none of which are complimented by the way the federal government runs.

BRB, there is someone knocking persistently at my door dressed in black suits…

Sorry if it seems like I am steering this thread off the tracks. It is one of those don’t get me started threads where I go off in free form from brain to keyboard.

My original point is that the tax system is so messed up, diluted, convoluted and complicated is that congress every year has to change and add new crap to the tax system.

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And the top 2% of income earners pays about 45% of all taxes….give or take

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Where did you get this stat ??? According to the article, the millionaires are skirting tax laws also, by claiming around 20% of their wealth through actual wages and the rest as capital gains, which has a lower tax base. Can you link where you found out this info…(I always heard the working middle class paid the bulk) ????

big G

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There is another problem. People play with numbers all the time. This should be a straight answer and it should be fact. But you can get one group saying one thing and another saying the exact opposite. I don’t know who to believe half the time.

CBO

There is a link there Share of Taxes Paid. I think that is what we are looking for?

The stat comes from the fact that even with ways to get around paying taxes the rich still pay the vast majority of federal taxes paid. If the loopholes were closed it would be even more astounding what the rich pay.

45% not paying taxes makes it easier to raise the taxes on the high end. Who cares? I won’t have to pay! Soak ’em some more!……. Where did my job go?

dd

Got this from CBS news, must have killed them to report it last year.

“An astonishing 43.4 percent of Americans now pay zero or negative federal income taxes. The number of single or jointly-filing “taxpayers” – the word must be applied sparingly – who pay no taxes or receive government handouts has reached 65.6 million, out of a total of 151 million.

Those numbers come from an analysis published yesterday by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Neither is a low-tax or conservative advocacy group; the Urban Institute was created under the Johnson administration during the Great Society era, and it receives most of its funding from the federal government. ” — link provided

web page

Personally I believe little to nothing I hear come out of any politicians mouth, they are all bought and paid for and stopped having the best interests of country a long time ago…

Step One to fix – term limits at all levels of government, and you cannot run while in office.

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The stat comes from the fact that even with ways to get around paying taxes the rich still pay the vast majority of federal taxes paid. If the loopholes were closed it would be even more astounding what the rich pay.

45% not paying taxes makes it easier to raise the taxes on the high end. Who cares? I won’t have to pay! Soak ’em some more!……. Where did my job go?

dd

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Very true!

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The stat comes from the fact that even with ways to get around paying taxes the rich still pay the vast majority of federal taxes paid. If the loopholes were closed it would be even more astounding what the rich pay.

45% not paying taxes makes it easier to raise the taxes on the high end. Who cares? I won’t have to pay! Soak ’em some more!……. Where did my job go?

dd

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Very true!

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Simple math, would tell me, the rich do pay more…the stat I am looking for is, who is paying/contributing more than their fair share ? If you take $100 from someone who makes $500, it stings more than taking $10,000 from someone who makes $50,000, percentage wise, its the same, but impact felt and trying to survive in a world that is otherwise theoretically equal, it is not. Then like said, add in the loopholes and see what actually stays paid. Them are the kind of numbers I am interested in. I hate taxes by the way…

big G

Our President said that everyone needs to have skin in the game. I agree with him. Everyone should pay something.

If you are on the lower end and “something” hurts, then it will encourage you to work harder and make more.

When you subsidize doing nothing or under performing, you get more of is. When you discourage success, you get less of it. It is not rocket science.

Kind of off topic, but wait until you feel the impact of the “Bush” tax cuts if allowed to expire. The child tax credit drops from the current rate of $1000 per child to $500 per child(with 5 kids thats $2500 less disposable income here)and the current lowest Fed rate of 5% raises to 10%, which will do nothing except hurt the middle class(those of us actually paying federal taxes) yet again being that the lowest earners(as stated above) pay nothing anyway. We’ll have to look at these stats again around the same time next year and see if the gap expands…..

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Our President said that everyone needs to have skin in the game. I agree with him. Everyone should pay something.

If you are on the lower end and “something” hurts, then it will encourage you to work harder and make more.

When you subsidize doing nothing or under performing, you get more of is. When you discourage success, you get less of it. It is not rocket science.

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I certainly agree with your comment “When you subsidize doing nothing or under performing, you get more of is. When you discourage success, you get less of it. It is not rocket science.” BUT……

“Our President” is for increasing unemployment to almost 3 years…and borrowing money to do it…

“Our President” and congress exempted themselves from their own Health Care program…not good enough for them

The congress froze SS cost of living raises to the populous this year while they gave themselves 5,000$ .

Now they want to give amnesty to 18,000,000 illegals…now that would help the unemployment situation

Don’t tell me about “our” President and “our” Congress… I am still trying to figure out who they are working for???

I whole heartedly agree…. while in the constitution, all men are created equal, we know that to be untrue. Some people are born with disabilities and/or lack the opportunities that some others are afforded, through no fault of their own. Should they be penalized for it, I say no. Don’t know exactly how you would do it, but I think it was Jesse who wanted MN to go to a user/buyer tax. This would close up most existing loopholes & end arounds, if you can spend, you can pay tax. If you can’t spend, you don’t have to pay.

big G

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…the stat I am looking for is, who is paying/contributing more than their fair share? big G

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Well G you aren’t going to find a stat on “what’s fair” because that is subjective. Some really dumb people would say tax the rich until they are poor and that would be fair.
Some really greedy people would say don’t have any taxes at all. That wouldn’t work either because the government does need do some things and it needs our money to do those things.

Dave’s suggestion of an across the board flat tax for all would probably be as close to fair as you can get.

dd

A tax on purchases is a good idea too G! Anything would be better than the insane system we currently have.

dd

Sign of the times boys–keep working so others don’t have to.
But, then again, what do you expect when in WI you can buy a PaPa Murphy’s pizza with an EBT (food stamp) card. Entitlements, entitlements, entitlements.

Flat tax of 10% across the board–make 100K–pay 10K in taxes, make 10K, pay 1K in taxes–time everyone pays their fair share.

Bang the drum for a national sales tax on EVERYTHING.

The more you are able to grow, build,do the less taxes you pay. Those of us like me who rely on others have to pay more in taxes.

Of course eliminating government welfare programs and foreign aid will pay off the national debt almost over night. But then, other countries will hate us. (more then they already do)

Also eliminate the gravy train for elected officials and see how many of these guys run for office.

“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

Winston Churchill

Politicians are working for themselves, thats obvious.

It,s not about the average individual at all.

So, how would you have it ??? People are now taxed on what they “earn”…. if you don’t earn any, you are not taxed. On top of that, if you do not earn, you are subsidized. Would you not rather have it, you are not taxed on what you “earn” but rather on what you “spend” ? That way, you can control how much tax you pay and will not be penalized for working hard and earning more. Also, those people who are not “earning” but rather are subsidized, will also be paying taxes when they purchase.(granted with other peoples money) Sounds really simple and fair, so I doubt it has any chance.

big G

Accountants, politicians, and special interest groups won’t want a national sales tax or a flat tax. They benefit greatly from the current system. The politicians can buy favors with the tax code which is why we have the thousand page monstrosity we have for a tax code. And that means you almost have to have accountants to figure it all out. I’m not to worried about the accountants though. If they can figure out our tax code they are smart enough to get some other kind of job. Bring on a sales tax!

dd

The bloodbath begins this November. Politicians will have no option but to pay attention to what the voters want. Blaming everything on the past Bush administrations won’t fly much longer. The current bunch will soon have to answer the question why they think they can spend trillions and still have 10% unemployment.

Special interest funding without creating jobs just doesn’t work in this country or any other country.

When your local baby kisser comes around this year just smile when they ask for your vote. Ask one simple question.

“How will you handle the budget? Cut spending or fund more jobs and programs?”

In my house, if I have no money, I can’t run out and buy a new boat. Pretty simple math. To get the money I need to work.

Speak of the devil, this on Bloomberg today:

Squeezing the Rich Is a Poor Way to Spur Growth: Caroline Baum
2010-08-05 01:00:00.1 GMT

Commentary by Caroline Baum
Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) — Thirty-six years after an academic economist named Arthur Laffer drew a curved line on a cocktail napkin, the debate over supply-side tax cuts paying for themselves is still going strong.
Why, after all this time and an extensive body of data, are we still questioning whether reductions in marginal and capital- gains tax rates increase economic activity enough to generate more revenue for the federal government?
“Because they don’t like the answer,” Laffer says of the doubters. “It’s not tax cuts that pay for themselves. Tax cuts on the poor cost you lots of money. Tax cuts on the rich pay for themselves. Rich people can afford lawyers, accountants, and can defer income.”
That’s one answer. Another may be that, unlike the hard sciences, there is no conclusive test. In a dynamic economy, it’s impossible to hold everything else constant except tax rates. Monetary policy, government regulation, trade policy, and the stage of the business cycle all affect economic growth.
Absent a controlled experiment — giving one group a placebo and the other a (tax-cut) drug — a conclusive answer is out of reach.
What we do know, empirically, is this: Over time, federal revenue as a share of gross domestic product has stayed fairly constant at 17.9 percent. That’s true if the top marginal tax rate is 91 percent (1950s), 50 percent (early 1980s) or 35 percent (2000s). Recessions are the one exception.

The Flat Fix

So, if the government’s tax take varies little, why create uncertainty over how much of our income we’ll have to fork over to Uncle Sam three, five, 10 years down the road? Why not flatten the rate, fix it and forget about it?
Fairness, for one. The government wants to take money from the rich and give it to the poor.
“They are wrong,” Laffer says. “It doesn’t work that way. The rich can change the volume, timing, composition and location of their income. Poor people can’t.”
Congress is the second. The tax code is the means through which lawmakers dole out tax breaks, credits and exemptions in return for campaign contributions. Which is why tax simplification in 1986 was such a short-lived phenomenon, says Jim Glassman, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
While scientific proof for the supply-side credo remains elusive, we have lots of statistics from the Internal Revenue Service that demonstrate the effect tax changes have on the rich, or top 1 percent of income earners. Laffer described them in an Aug. 2 Wall Street Journal op-ed. Since 1978, a series of reductions in the top marginal tax rate served to increase the share of taxes paid by the rich.

Rich Are Different

This should come as no surprise. The rich have the luxury to respond to incentives, to opt for more work and less leisure when the return on work is greater. They are motivated to take risks, maybe start a business, invent something, and get even richer while giving others the opportunity, through hiring, to do the same.
The opposite is true for low-income workers. When the government raises taxes, someone struggling to put food on the table for his family may have to go out and get a second job to maintain his level of take-home pay. For this socio-economic group, higher taxes translate to more work.
To ignore evidence that the rich behave differently is silly. The government can’t get more blood from a stone, yet it keeps trying. Instead of demagoguing tax cuts for the rich, Democrats should try embracing them for a change.

Congress’s Play Thing

“It’s in everyone’s interest that the economy do as well as it can so that the government can fulfill the promises it’s made,” Glassman says.
If the trade-off is between fairness and dynamism, dynamism should win every time.
No economist will quarrel with the idea that taxes affect incentives, Glassman says. “When I have a choice between work and leisure, the tax decision makes a difference.”
That hasn’t changed the arguments for allowing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans to expire at year-end.
Academics are busy churning out articles claiming tax cuts for the rich deliver less bang for the buck because the rich save more of the money than the poor.
That’s true. It also misses the point. The goal isn’t spending, or distributing other people’s money to create “aggregate demand.” That’s a wealth transfer, not a net stimulus. (Fiscal policy gets its punch from monetary policy, from the increase in the money supply to pay for the spending.)
The goal should be to incentivize individuals to work hard, save and invest in the future. It’s about growing the pie.
Sound familiar? We’re right back to square one. I, for one, would like to see the debate shift from class warfare over tax rates and targeted tax relief to tax reform. Either scrap the tax code and introduce a simple flat tax with no deductions, or scrap the IRS and move to a consumption tax.
If you want to get money out of politics, there’s only one way to do it. Take the tax code out of Congress’s hands.

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The bloodbath begins this November. Politicians will have no option but to pay attention to what the voters want. Blaming everything on the past Bush administrations won’t fly much longer. The current bunch will soon have to answer the question why they think they can spend trillions and still have 10% unemployment.

Special interest funding without creating jobs just doesn’t work in this country or any other country.

When your local baby kisser comes around this year just smile when they ask for your vote. Ask one simple question.

“How will you handle the budget? Cut spending or fund more jobs and programs?”

In my house, if I have no money, I can’t run out and buy a new boat. Pretty simple math. To get the money I need to work.

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Brian,
I hope what you posted comes true, but I don’t see it happening. Just look at the subject of this thread. It’s almost a given that the 45% that don’t pay taxes will continue to support the free handouts. Add in another 6% of the die hard liberals and thats pretty tough to overcome.

I’m just hopeing that Mark Dayton doesn’t become the next Gov. of MN. You’d think, why does a person from WI give a rip about who the Gov. of MN is? Since my wife and I work in MN, we get to pay MN state income taxes. If you listen to Dayton’s commercials, he makes no mistake about raising taxes on the rich. His definition of rich is a family income > 150K. He claims he will make the rich pay their fair share.

What the heck does that mean. They already pay the highest percentage of state income taxes (7.85%). I’m afraid to find out what he thinks fair is… At least Entenza and the other Anderson-Kellerher will only raise taxes for rich families that make over 250K.

I guess I always have the option to quit my job and jump on the gravy train.

How in the heck does anybody know what the candidates stand for? All I hear is “we will bash the Pawlenty way of doing things.” Hear a solution there? No.

We are rats on a treadmill. We can’t elect anybody who cares about anything but who is paying them under the table.

IMHO just elect somebody who creates jobs, thus tax payers, then I don’t care how much they steal.

Create jobs and end welfare, is that to much to ask?

Oh, and on the federal level can’t we just end the war we can’t possibly win?

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Take the tax code out of Congress’s hands.

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Dam good idea….

My idea of “fair”(not “fair share”)is ALL citizens pay their share…Be it $50 or be it $500,000