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American companies don't pay that tax though...Looking at your data American corporate taxes are way higher than in Canada for example. The actual money collected tells a very different story.

The U.S. corporate income tax, as a share of GDP, averaged 2.2 percent of GDP for the 2000 to 2011 period. This is in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor, Canada, which collected far more corporate income tax revenues than the United States at roughly 3.4 percent of GDP during the same period (Chart 2)

https://taxfoundation.org/us-c...

You still (conveniently) forget about VAT payroll taxes and social security etc that are higher for businesses in other countries.

So not only do Americans pay less tax than you keep claiming, other places pay more in other corporate taxes as well.

If you could read and understand you wouldn't look so foolish...

You mean the same link that shows you are totally incorrect?

The same link that mentions, after deductions and subsidies and everything else, America is only about a 1/3 of Canada. Even though you foolishly keep telling everyone America is much much higher.

Learn to read silly boy.

American companies don't pay that tax though...Looking at your data American corporate taxes are way higher than in Canada for example. The actual money collected tells a very different story.

The U.S. corporate income tax, as a share of GDP, averaged 2.2 percent of GDP for the 2000 to 2011 period. This is in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor, Canada, which collected far more corporate income tax revenues than the United States at roughly 3.4 percent of GDP during the same period (Chart 2)

https://taxfoundation.org/us-c...

You still (conveniently) forget about VAT payroll taxes and social security etc that are higher for businesses in other countries.

So not only do Americans pay less tax than you keep claiming, other places pay more in other corporate taxes as well. You're doubly foolish.
Lynwood liar, still with his head stuck up his arse.

Already shown not to be the case. Data shows your EFFECTIVE rate, isn't very effective at all. Only collecting 2.2 percent of GDP vs Canada's 3.4%

No one actually believes that American companies pay that tax though...Looking at your data American corporate taxes are way higher than in Canada for example. The actual money collected tells a very different story.

The U.S. corporate income tax, as a share of GDP, averaged 2.2 percent of GDP for the 2000 to 2011 period. This is in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor, Canada, which collected far more corporate income tax revenues than the United States at roughly 3.4 percent of GDP during the same period (Chart 2)

https://taxfoundation.org/us-c...

You still (conveniently) forget about VAT payroll taxes and social security etc that are higher for businesses in other countries.

Keep on bullshitting though, some ignorants will believe you still.

No one actually believes that American companies pay that tax though...Looking at your data American corporate taxes are way higher than in Canada for example. The actual money collected tells a very different story.

The U.S. corporate income tax, as a share of GDP, averaged 2.2 percent of GDP for the 2000 to 2011 period. This is in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor, Canada, which collected far more corporate income tax revenues than the United States at roughly 3.4 percent of GDP during the same period (Chart 2)

https://taxfoundation.org/us-c...

You still (conveniently) forget about VAT payroll taxes and social security etc that are higher for businesses in other countries.

No one actually believes that American companies pay that tax though...Looking at your data American corporate taxes are way higher than in Canada for example. The actual money collected tells a very different story.

The U.S. corporate income tax, as a share of GDP, averaged 2.2 percent of GDP for the 2000 to 2011 period. This is in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor, Canada, which collected far more corporate income tax revenues than the United States at roughly 3.4 percent of GDP during the same period (Chart 2)

https://taxfoundation.org/us-c...

No one actually believes that American companies pay that tax though...Looking at your data American corporate taxes are way higher than in Canada for example. The actual money collected tells a very different story.

The U.S. corporate income tax, as a share of GDP, averaged 2.2 percent of GDP for the 2000 to 2011 period. This is in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor, Canada, which collected far more corporate income tax revenues than the United States at roughly 3.4 percent of GDP during the same period (Chart 2)

https://taxfoundation.org/us-c...

No one actually believes that American companies pay that tax though...Looking at your data American corporate taxes are way higher than in Canada for example. The actual money collected tells a very different story.

The U.S. corporate income tax, as a share of GDP, averaged 2.2 percent of GDP for the 2000 to 2011 period. This is in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor, Canada, which collected far more corporate income tax revenues than the United States at roughly 3.4 percent of GDP during the same period (Chart 2)

https://taxfoundation.org/us-c...

Corporate tax rates for the US were near the highest in the world. Not just statutory, but effective tax rates. Companies are now bringing back cash and operations because it's financially viable now. Or should corporations just pay and pay and pay? You take every deduction you can - why shouldn't someone else?

We are talking corporate taxes, and for those we're right at or very near the top. Well ahead of most of Europe in terms of statutory, average, and effective corporate tax rates. Why do companies do things like relocate to Ireland, the Netherlands, and other places in the EU? Because it was cheaper than the US.

The US used to have the highest statutory rate, and was near the top in average and effective rates for corporate income taxes. We've now just moved to the middle of the pack, closer down to what German companies pay.

Why not? We had the highest marginal rate, and one of the highest average and effective rates in the G20. Our biggest competitors - Germany, China, France, India - all enjoyed much lower marginal average, and effective corporate tax rates. Why shouldn't we be more in-line with our competition?

Nope. it was based on a static projection with no assumption of growth. A dynamic scoring of the tax bill shows a MUCH smaller deficit, and even then it assumes GDP growth of under 3% per year. Push past 3%, and it's going to be a net gain.

Giggle. Typical Ameritard. Your tax burden isn't even in the top 20 OECD I'm kind of intrigued, though; which echo chamber did you get your equisite bit of bullshit from?

Blue States still contribute the bulk of federal taxes while receiving less federal funding. So red states pay less taxes per services they receive. Blue states foot the bill.

From a conservative source, nonetheless

https://taxfoundation.org/stat...

. What happens when the municipality gets cash strapped and decides to jack rats up by a factor of 10? At least with Comcast or AT&T, you can switch or even do without. That $50 a month is basically an added tax to a state that already has a high income cost.

Wrong on every level. The internet is just a public option - you are still welcome to choose CenturyLink or Comcast, which have suddenly and mysteriously dropped their rates. The $50 a month is a price you can choose to pay or not, but you would be stupid not to because it's 20x the speed of the competitors at a lower monthly rate.

Additionally, Colorado doesn't have a very high income tax - it's below the national average: https://taxfoundation.org/stat...

I miss the days when the telco shills and Trumpist trolls would put at least a cursory effort into believable arguments.

Nope: Untrue.

It's not like he proposed a plan of his own.

Actually, he did. (He has since removed the plan from his own web site, in typical Trump Minitru manner.)

Was it 'Trumps pay no tax, fuck everyone else'?

It's not like he proposed a plan of his own.

Actually, he did.
(He has since removed the plan from his own web site, in typical Trump Minitru manner.)

Even if you take the high estimates some people like to use (which includes things like low income assistance to purchase home heating oil), it works out to about 10 cents per gallon. The Federal fuel tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon, plus about 30 cents per gallon at the state and local level. So there's no net subsidy for fossil fuels. Rather there's a huge tax on it (albeit not as big as in other countries). Huge enough to more than swamp out the coal subsidies (which are only about 1/4 that of oil and gas subsidies).

Actually, not only is the tax on gasoline used for vehicles not huge, it's actually not covering the costs of said fossil fuel in terms of the environment, but a service fee that is meant to provide the transportation network which said vehicles depend on for their utility. And it's actually grossly under the net costs. So it isn't even funding that.

Sorry, but not only if your little detour into irrelevancy fallacious, it's actually exposing yet another cost, the transportation network, which is actually becoming more and more of a hindrance, with a net cost far higher than again, the subsidies you wring your hands over for fossil fuels.

I call BS. Houston power starts at $0.087 per kWh. And power from PG&E for the Paso Robles area (central coast) start at $0.199 per kWh and go up. That's over twice as much. Using GasBuddy.com, gas in CA averages $3.07 per gallon, and in TX it is around $2.12 per gallon.

Paso Robles, CA is around 1.44 times the national average for cost of living, Houston is at 1.02 - just about average for the US.

Property tax rates in CA are fairly low compared to TX, but the average home in Houston is around $220,000. In Paso Robles, houses are twice that price. Sure, property taxes are a bit lower in CA, but we also have a 13.3% income tax compared to 0% for TX. If you make just about anything more than $10,000 per year, your property tax "savings" in CA are swallowed up by State income tax.

Well, the German tax depends on the beer specific gravity, but according to Wikipedia it is on average EUR 0.094 per liter of beer - that would be about $0.40 per gallon, which is, according to here actually higher than in most of the US states. In comparison Germany would rank at #15, together with Oklahoma. In addition, beer in Germany is taxed at the full VAT of 19%, not the reduced 7% food VAT and beer bottles are always deposit bottles (EUR 0.08 for glass bottles, EUR 0.25 for plastic bottles).

And as for politicians, Merkel was elected for several times, despite everything. Her mentor Kohl, the corrupt piece of shit, ruled Germany for 16 years. We Germans are way too patient.

If $125k worth of ads on FaceBook really had such a massive impact (and please cite any reputable source that shows facts on that happening), then perhaps it is time to introduce an idiocy test before being allowed to vote. If you get all your news from FaceBook or spend more than 15 hours a week on FaceBook/SnapChat/Twitter then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Or if you can't spot at least 50% of which articles are fake in a pool of say 12 articles then you don't get to vote.

Or better yet, if your annual tax filings are 0 or negative (yes some people get more money back than they pay in) then perhaps you also shouldn't be allowed to vote since you have no actual skin in the game. As soon as the tipping point is reached (which isn't too far away) that more than 50% of the voters are those who always vote a socialist agenda to take away from one group to give to another, then the nation is headed for collapse. As Margaret Thatcher put it:

SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTS TRADITIONALLY DO MAKE A FINANCIAL MESS. THEY ALWAYS RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.

And you get socialist governments by having an il-informed electorate who are easily manipulated into voting one in by constantly saying things like "how is the government going to pay for that tax cut?" - how about maybe STOP SPENDING SO MUCH? - or "that will only benefit the rich". Of course it benefits the rich because 45% of Americans pay no federal income tax so a cut from 0 is 0.

In contrast however the other half pay 97.3% of all taxes with the top 5% of earners carrying a whopping 59.97% of the tax burden but only controlling 35% of the income. So of course a tax cut benefits the wealthy because they're the ones actually PAYING TAXES. But you ask any of these idiots who were supposedly swayed by Russian ads about these facts and they'll spew the Democrat/US Media propaganda about how the rich "don't pay their fair share". I haven't heard that those lies were part of any Russian ads, so who really is interfering in US elections by spreading fake ads and news stories?

Hell, if that minuscule amount of spending by the evil Russians had such a great impact that it overpowered almost a billion dollars in spending and full cooperation from 90% of all media outlets, then the Russians should start a 5th Avenue Advertising firm and they'd end up controlling the entire world without firing a shot. After all their mere $120k+ investment apparently completely changed the outcome of an election in the United States whereas Obama's $350k interference had no impact on the Israeli election.

Maybe that is why there is so much supposed anger over the Russians involvement because they apparently showed how incompetent Obama was (again) by spending less than half what he did.

The state is already broke with all infrastructure and public services in total collapse

Oh, that's adorable - you watch Fox News! I know this because reality doesn't actually reflect the nonsense you're asserting as fact, and Fox & Friends are the main outlets for that particular fiction.

add a defense budget and it would be lights out.

First, I agree that Calexit is nuts. I don't support it at all. That said, back in reality land, California and other blue states prop up the rest of the country financially. CA could afford to maintain the military bases it already has if we weren't saddled with supporting broke-ass red states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Montana, Kentucky, and Missouri.

The state is already broke with all infrastructure and public services in total collapse

Oh, that's adorable - you watch Fox News! I know this because reality doesn't actually reflect the nonsense you're asserting as fact, and Fox & Friends are the main outlets for that particular fiction.

add a defense budget and it would be lights out.

First, I agree that Calexit is nuts. I don't support it at all. That said, back in reality land, California and other blue states prop up the rest of the country financially. CA could afford to maintain the military bases it already has if we weren't saddled with supporting broke-ass red states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Montana, Kentucky, and Missouri.

I honestly hope California becomes its own country then they can go bankrupt with their socialist economy without dragging the rest of the country down.

California's "socialist economy" apparently works a hell of a lot better than that of most red states, considering that they get only $0.78 from the federal government for every $1 paid. Mississippi, on the other hand, gets $2 from the feds for every dollar of federal taxation they pay. I don't think this will work out like you are hoping.

Citation: https://taxfoundation.org/pres...

Your citation is over a decade old (2005); that is a pretty stale source. Also I wonder how much California gets in indirect subsidies. How many federal jobs are there providing jobs? How many military bases are in California providing jobs? And many jobs are those federal/military jobs creating?

I honestly hope California becomes its own country then they can go bankrupt with their socialist economy without dragging the rest of the country down.

California's "socialist economy" apparently works a hell of a lot better than that of most red states, considering that they get only $0.78 from the federal government for every $1 paid. Mississippi, on the other hand, gets $2 from the feds for every dollar of federal taxation they pay. I don't think this will work out like you are hoping.

Citation: https://taxfoundation.org/pres...

So it takes a SECOND breech before they decide to suspend the contract? If they have the option to suspend it now, why didn't they do it before? I think this speaks volumes about the competence of the IRS.

How about we move to a simple flat tax with no loopholes, which would dismantle 80% of the IRS and either pass the savings onto the taxpayers or use the savings to start paying off the 20 TRILLION DOLLAR national debt?

Even they admit they directly spend over 12 BILLION dollars a year, which goes up every year! Yet that doesn't include what it costs businesses and individuals to COMPLY with the insanely complicated tax codes. That compliance is estimated to cost the USA economy an additional $409 BILLION dollars every year. Wow, that works out to $3,500 dollars for every tax payer in the country, every year.

https://taxfoundation.org/comp...

https://www.usatoday.com/story...

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

https://fairtax.org/index

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2015-update/. Other sources provide similar results. You cold have found the results yourself, but you're too lazy, and that's why you'll never be that rich.

"Roads are paid for by the end-user in the form of a gasoline tax."

Factually wrong. No they are not for the large bulk of costs. https://taxfoundation.org/gaso.... Annnd that is for the current state, The massive build out of the road system was primarily funded by general tax liabilities.

I suppose we could have defeated the Nazis with horse-drawn carriages...."

Nope. Note I do think subsidies are bad when done right, I just brought up that point to illustrate how "free market" crusaders are just completely ignorant of reality.

"You pay for it coming or going. The end user just pays at whatever point."

I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

If the top earners are taxed at 39.6%,

Then that matters jack-shit, because we are talking about Wisconsin tax payer money, not federal taxes.

At 53K per year, you're in the 25% tax bracket. Let's see what happens if a majority portion of the workers earn $35K instead of $53K to allow for some few dozen padded executive salaries.

2900 @ 35,000 is 101 million, plus 100 million for 100 million dollar packages. 101 million @ .25 ($25 million) and 100 million @ .396 ($39.6 Million) for a total tax income burden of $64.6 million; versus 53,000 * 3000 for 159 million @ .25 for a total income tax burden of $39,750,000.

At the low end of the scale, workers tend to pay nearly zero income tax (source). They pay SSI/FICA, but not income tax. And the cost of welfare/unemployment for those now-displaced workers is probably well offsets the increase in income tax of those bottom 20%. Income tax on $2,000 per year, at the bottom end of the tax brackets, is about 3.5% - meaning about $70 in extra income tax per worker, per year. Assuming $20,000 in unemployment benefits, it would take nearly 300 workers to offset the costs to support one unemployed worker.

"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands."

Judge Learned Hand.

What is "moral" about paying more taxes than required? If morality is about paying taxes, then you must consider the rich the most moral of all, since they pay the highest tax rate and most of the tax money. And the bottom 50% of income earners must all be immoral cretins since they pay, essentially, nothing.

Marginal tax rate on income above $418,000 is 39.6%. All income before that is taxed at lower rates. Take a look at the actual tax return summary data for the US and you'll see the top 5% earn above $188,000 and average 23.6% income taxes. The top 1% pay about a 27% income tax rate - far below the marginal 39.6%. That's because the income tax rate is progressive, and the top marginal tax rate only kicks in for the portion of income that is above $418,000.

And this is only for long-term capital gains (meaning the asset was held for a minimum of 1 year); for short term capital gains, it is treated strictly as regular income. That's why, when you exercise your stock options and sell on the same day, they are considered short term capital gains. Even if you were granted the options years ago, you did not actually own the asset (the stock) until you exercised the option - and if you sell that within 1 year of exercising, then it's short-term capital gains. Meaning: it's plain, ordinary income.

Marginal tax rate on income above $418,000 is 39.6%. All income before that is taxed at lower rates. Take a look at the actual tax return summary data for the US and you'll see the top 5% earn above $188,000 and average 23.6% income taxes. The top 1% pay about a 27% income tax rate - far below the marginal 39.6%. That's because the income tax rate is progressive, and the top marginal tax rate only kicks in for the portion of income that is above $418,000.

And this is only for long-term capital gains (meaning the asset was held for a minimum of 1 year); for short term capital gains, it is treated strictly as regular income. That's why, when you exercise your stock options and sell on the same day, they are considered short term capital gains. Even if you were granted the options years ago, you did not actually own the asset (the stock) until you exercised the option - and if you sell that within 1 year of exercising, then it's short-term capital gains. Meaning: it's plain, ordinary income.

Call it what you will, but $150K puts you firmly into the top 10%, and most of that $150K-$300K range will put you well into the top 5% of income earners. Most would consider the top 5-10% as "rich"...

Most would consider the top 5% to be rich. But that is because most people don't have a very good grasp on money and income distribution. The average American thinks the average manufacturing CEO makes 20 times more than their factory workers while they actually make 354 time more. The average American thinks the top 20% richest among us have 59% of the wealth, while they actually have 84% of it. I agree that your opinion is what most people believe, I'm just telling you you're wrong.

Someone just barely in the top 5% of family income makes $215k per year. This income level is far more comfortable than a standard middle class income, but it does not come close to affording the type of lifestyle people describe when they think of rich. You probably don't own a yacht or a private jet. You probably don't own a second home and if you do it probably isn't that nice. You probably don't have a $100k+ car. You probably don't have a $1+ million home. You probably make sacrifices when planning a vacation instead of just doing whatever you want.

They certainly have a much more comfortable life than a median income family, but the upper middle class resemble the middle class far more than they do the wealthy.

The rich do pay capital gains taxes. Short term capital gains are taxed as regular income. Long term capital gains are still taxed once you make more than $40K per year. And the long term capital gains tax rate starts at a rate equivalent to the average tax rate of the top 50% - surprisingly close to where that $40K income would put you...

Income is at (about) 40%, long term capital gains is %20, right? That's a huge break for people who have enough capital to live on the capital gains. Nobody thinks capital gains are not taxed at all, but that the relative rates favor the very wealthy.

Actually, capital gains tax reaches 20%, which is close to the average tax rate paid by the top 5% on all their income.

And the GP AC is also pimping a way that will DEFINITELY draw the attention of the IRS (a house from your corporation will be considered as material payment, and should be considered income - even if your corporation owns it, unless you can prove that it is used strictly for business purposes by anyone associated with the business) and land you in "Federal PMITA Prison".

The rich do pay capital gains taxes. Short term capital gains are taxed as regular income. Long term capital gains are still taxed once you make more than $40K per year. And the long term capital gains tax rate starts at a rate equivalent to the average tax rate of the top 50% - surprisingly close to where that $40K income would put you...

The rich do pay taxes on capital gains, but I understand it makes GREAT political theater to claim otherwise! It's great to ignore $716 billion in capital gains taxes paid in 2014 alone, considering it is about 25% of all tax revenues to the Federal Government. But keep on ranting against "the man" and his zero tax capital gains!

Defining what is "rich" is all semantics. Economists put $150-$300k household incomes into the upper middle class. This class has a very different life experience from people in the middle class, but an even drastically different experience from those who are wealthy.

Call it what you will, but $150K puts you firmly into the top 10%, and most of that $150K-$300K range will put you well into the top 5% of income earners. Most would consider the top 5-10% as "rich"...

$150K puts you well into the top 10%, and most of that $150K-$300K is well in the top 5%. Yes, it's rich. Is it enough for your situation? That's not the question - you are in the top 10% (or higher) for all income earners, meaning you ARE rich in income.

Spending now, that can make a rich man poor...

Yeah, we're not the highest, for the G20 we're 3rd place behind Argentina and Indonesia when it comes to average effective corporate tax rate.

But in Norway, doesn't the tax system give everyone about the same net income, no matter how much they may gross?

Nope. Some other European countries have high tax brackets for big earners, but Norway's top tax bracket is only 39%, which is lower than the USA: https://taxfoundation.org/how-...

You are 100% correct. The USA has the highest marginal corporate tax rate, and the 3rd highest effective corporate tax rate. Why should they pay more than they would pay in any EU country? Lower the marginal corporate tax rate to the OECD average around 20%, ensure the effective corporate tax rate is down near the OECD of 15%, and I bet a ton of that cash would flow back...

In fact, if it were my choice, I'd set the corporate tax rate to 0%. And I would state that US corporations must be headquartered in the US, and at least 60% of all VP level and higher positions within the corporation or its parent corporation must reside at least 181 days within the US (making personal income taxable). My guess is a ton of companies would relocate to the US because of the tax savings, and quite a few wealthy folks would relocate as well (because of the 60% management rule) such that service and goods industries would also pick up from the increase of spending by the additional top 10% income earners...

How about Canada, the UK, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand? They all have a lower tax burden on workers... What would you consider their quality of life?

If you look back in the 50s, we see tax receipts were around $620 billion (in 2009 dollars). That was for about 161 million people. Federal tax receipts are now about $3,000 billion in 2009 dollars, and the population has roughly doubled to 330 million. Meaning taxes are up about 2.5 times per capita, versus the 50s. Is our quality of life that much better?

Look at the "big wartime" years of the 40s - you'll find the same thing, Government taxation (and spending) has exploded well beyond historical norms, and it seems our labor force participation rate is low, poverty is up, and crime is much higher. Is quality of life better? You be the judge...

I'm really confused about the president's position on dodging taxes. If poor people don't pay taxes, that's bad. But if a rich person gets a tax break, that's good.

It's actually really simple: he wants a more equal sharing of the tax burden:

https://taxfoundation.org/inco...

Note that poor people don't just not pay taxes, they get money back from the IRS.

If you look at total transfers, it gets even worse: the bottom 60% of income earners get more than they pay in:

https://taxfoundation.org/60-p...

That's not sustainable. No other advanced country works that way.

I'm really confused about the president's position on dodging taxes. If poor people don't pay taxes, that's bad. But if a rich person gets a tax break, that's good.

It's actually really simple: he wants a more equal sharing of the tax burden:

https://taxfoundation.org/inco...

Note that poor people don't just not pay taxes, they get money back from the IRS.

If you look at total transfers, it gets even worse: the bottom 60% of income earners get more than they pay in:

https://taxfoundation.org/60-p...

That's not sustainable. No other advanced country works that way.

https://thinkprogress.org/weal...

The top ten percent of earners in the United States took home more than 50 percent of all income in 2012, the highest amount ever recorded since data was first collected in 1917, according to an updated report from economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty.

While the wealthiest took a big hit during the financial crisis, theyâ(TM)ve almost fully recovered. Last year, income for the top 1 percent of earners âoeincreased sharply,â the report notes, growing by nearly 20 percent, while the bottom 99 percent only saw money rise by 1 percent. âoeIn sum,â the authors write, âoetop 1% incomes are close to full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover.â

This follows a trend since the recovery officially began. From 2009 to 2012, income for the 1 percent grew by 31.4 percent, while everyone else only saw it grow by 0.4 percent. That means the 1 percent âoecaptured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery,â they write.

http://equitablegrowth.org/res...

"U.S. top one percent of income earners hit new high in 2015 amid strong economic growth"
"The top 1 percent income earners in the United States hit a new high last year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The bottom 99 percent of income earners registered the best real income growth (after factoring in inflation) in 17 years, but the top one percent did even better. The latest IRS data show that incomes for the bottom 99 percent of families grew by 3.9 percent over 2014 levels, the best annual growth rate since 1998, but incomes for those families in the top 1 percent of earners grew even faster, by 7.7 percent, over the same period. (See Figure 1.)"

http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/...

https://thinkprogress.org/the-...
Adjusting for inflation and excluding anything made from capital gains investments like stocks, however, shows that even that small gains for all but the richest disappears. According to Justin Wolfers, adjusted average income for the 1 percent without capital gains rose from $871,100 to $968,000 in that time period. For everyone else, average income actually fell from $44,000 to $43,900. Calculated this way, the 1 percent has captured all of the income gains.

Saezâ(TM)s new data show that income for the 1 percent did actually decrease somewhat in 2013 as compared to 2012: its share of income fell from 22.8 percent to 20.1 percent.

Note: The top 1% alone earned 20% of the entire nation's income. It's easy to hit 50% when you go to the top 10%.

here's updated 2015 data...
https://taxfoundation.org/summ...
Top 10% 45.87% of the total income.

The ENTIRE bottom 50% earned only 11.49% of the entire nation's income.

If you allow any kind of deductions at all, their taxes are going to be much lower because even tiny deductions are a huge portion of their income. But worst case, let them starve- the most they could pay would be 11.49%.

But given the crippling size of state and local taxes combined with social security taxes, many would starve and go homeless.

Here's a state by state breakdown of how much people pay in state, local, and excise taxes .

http://www.itep.org/whopays/fu...

Excise taxes are things like $2 on your cell phone bill and $70 a year for your car. Likewise, the poorest get no share of pr

The wealthy - the top 10% - overwhelmingly carry the tax burden even though they make a minority of all income. Add in that capital gains taxes and luxury excise taxes are almost exclusively the domain of those top 10%, and they are easily funding more than half of all Government spending - while making less than half of the personal (not including corporate) income. But hey, you keep that income inequality mantra rolling!

https://taxfoundation.org/summ...