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

skeptic llc said:
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 ###.
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Statistics... There is a 99% chance that anyone on this thread is not in the top 1%.
 
MTAtech said:
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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Its actually somewhere between 1% and 5% as of 2018. The top 1% of tax filers paid 41.5% of total income tax. The top 5% paid 63% of taxes.

SOI Tax Stats - Individual Statistical Tables by Size of Adjusted Gross Income | Internal Revenue Service

Individual Tax Statistics - Data by Size of Income.
www.irs.gov www.irs.gov
 
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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Whats the trick? That the rich have to pay an additional medicare tax?
 
SimpleTom said:
Actually, in 2017 the top 10% paid $1.1 trillion in taxes but actually made $5.2 trillion...
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Source?

SOI Tax Stats - Individual Income Tax Return (Form 1040) Statistics | Internal Revenue Service

Find individual income tax return statistics. Data are presented by geographic area, size of income, marital or filing status and form type.
www.irs.gov www.irs.gov
SimpleTom said:
Actually, in 2017 the top 10% paid $1.1 trillion in taxes but actually made $5.2 trillion...
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Sorry, I meant the top 1% and its about 650bn paid of 2.5T earned. Certainly not almost nothing. And we're only talking about 1.6 million people paying 41% of all income tax. Less than 1% of citizens paying for almost half of every dollar spent on defense, roads, justice, food stamps, education, science, most healthcare spending, veterans, welfare, housing, foreign affairs.

SOI Tax Stats - Individual Income Tax Return (Form 1040) Statistics | Internal Revenue Service

Find individual income tax return statistics. Data are presented by geographic area, size of income, marital or filing status and form type.
www.irs.gov www.irs.gov
 
Manc Skipper said:
And the richest pay almost nothing as a percentage of their wealth. If I can afford to retain someone whose sole job is to save me enough tax to pay their salary, then I'm earning too much.
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You mean like Turbo Tax?
 
jonny5 said:
Sorry, I meant the top 1% and its about 650bn paid of 2.5T earned. Certainly not almost nothing. And we're only talking about 1.6 million people paying 41% of all income tax. Less than 1% of citizens paying for almost half of every dollar spent on defense, roads, justice, food stamps, education, science, most healthcare spending, veterans, welfare, housing, foreign affairs.
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First, I work with the tax stats on a semi-regular basis, in fact, I was going to check your math when I realized the 2018 filing year was already up on my computer so I am going to convert your 2017 data to 2018 data in my response where people with Adjusted Gross Incomes of $200,000 or more paid 44.6% of "income tax." The first thing we need to note is that it is not 1.6 million people, because someone conveniently forgot to adjust for married filing jointly returns and so the real number in 2018 was 3.04 million people (that is in 2018 numbers I am sure it would be a bit less in 2017).

Next, this is based on the arbitrary assertion that income tax is limited to just one of three taxes on income. I really do struggle to understand why people just accept that ridiculous definition of income tax. If a landlord charges you $500 in rent and $300 for an assessment fee and $100 in a community fee, do you run around saying my rent is $500, or do you tell people your rent is $900 because that is what you write the check for?
In reality, the amount of money paid to the Federal government by 3.3 million people was about 23% of all individual income based tax revenues. Certainly, still a lot but not the earth-shattering number that 44.6% is.
 
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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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Now that is a little hard to believe right there.

The top 10% paid taxes at a 40% rate? The top marginal rate is only 37%. Guess that income doesn't include all their right offs.

Is that including capital gains? That rate is only 15%
 
SimpleTom said:
First, I work with the tax stats on a semi-regular basis, in fact, I was going to check your math when I realized the 2018 filing year was already up on my computer so I am going to convert your 2017 data to 2018 data in my response where people with Adjusted Gross Incomes of $200,000 or more paid 44.6% of "income tax." The first thing we need to note is that it is not 1.6 million people, because someone conveniently forgot to adjust for married filing jointly returns and so the real number in 2018 was 3.04 million people (that is in 2018 numbers I am sure it would be a bit less in 2017).

Next, this is based on the arbitrary assertion that income tax is limited to just one of three taxes on income. I really do struggle to understand why people just accept that ridiculous definition of income tax. If a landlord charges you $500 in rent and $300 for an assessment fee and $100 in a community fee, do you run around saying my rent is $500, or do you tell people your rent is $900 because that is what you write the check for?
In reality, the amount of money paid to the Federal government by 3.3 million people was about 23% of all individual income based tax revenues. Certainly, still a lot but not the earth-shattering number that 44.6% is.
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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.

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.
 
rickc said:
Now that is a little hard to believe right there.

The top 10% paid taxes at a 40% rate? The top marginal rate is only 37%. Guess that income doesn't include all their right offs.

Is that including capital gains? That rate is only 15%
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It includes all federal income taxes. I provided the IRS stats. Go check for yourself.
 
jonny5 said:
And 75% of spending is going to social programs which almost entirely benefit those 50% paying nearly nothing.
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I recognize you're excluding entitlement spending from the equation, but this still seems wrong. Ignores defense, interest on the debt, and is the characterization true even of the nondefense discretionary chunk of spending? How did you come up with this?
 
skeptic llc said:
I recognize you're excluding entitlement spending from the equation, but this still seems wrong. Ignores defense, interest on the debt, and is the characterization true even of the nondefense discretionary chunk of spending? How did you come up with this?
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Rush and Sean
 
TurtleDude said:
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.
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And if Trump wasn’t a white supremacist fascist, I might have stayed home.
 
skeptic llc said:
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 ###.
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A multi-millionaire spends their time posting on a random Internet forum? Really? That’s believable to you?
 
This top 3% of taxpayers has at least as much wealth as the "bottom" 90% of the rest of the US population so I'm grateful that this thread informs us as to how grossly undertaxed these people are. These numbers are already 6 years old and which would be even much more skewed toward the wealthy now due to Dirtbag's and the Republicans massive tax cuts to the already filthy rich:

Screen Shot 2020-10-27 at 10.48.59 AM.png
This country has always leaned toward a plutocracy but it's racing to be one now.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Income redistribution from current workers to the elderly and/or disabled.
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Can we have your promise to not take Medicare and Social Security, then? BTW, the private insurance model works exactly the same way but you'd never admit it.
 
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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What people wonder is how America got to the point where 10% of the population owns 75% of the wealth and 90% of us have not had a raise since the 1980's. Shouldn't the top 10% be paying 75% of the taxes instead of only half? It's time for them to have a tax hike.

http://www.mybudget360.com/wealth-i...f-us-households-control-75-percent-of-wealth/

median-household-income.png
 
skeptic llc said:
I recognize you're excluding entitlement spending from the equation, but this still seems wrong. Ignores defense, interest on the debt, and is the characterization true even of the nondefense discretionary chunk of spending? How did you come up with this?
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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%.
 
digitusmedius said:
Can we have your promise to not take Medicare and Social Security, then? BTW, the private insurance model works exactly the same way but you'd never admit it.
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Nope, the private insurance model can’t demand that others pay your premiums.
 
Questerr said:
Because the wealth of billionaires is based on exploitation, whether that’s of their workers, the environment, the consumers, or some combination of the three.
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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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