Slashdot Mirror

I'm enlightened. By looking at the site you recommend, I learned that in 1999, only 3% of individuals or families earning over $200,000 per year have more in payroll taxes than income taxes. That means that all the other taxes added together still don't equal as much in their income tax. Wait, I've got some numbers...

You are only looking at personal income taxes, which make up only 48% of federal revenues.

From YOUR site, I learned that the payroll taxes (social security & medicare) are "only" 33% of federal revenues. So, let's continue...

From your site, I found a Payroll Tax vs. Income Tax chart, which shows what percentage of tax payers have more payroll taxes than income taxes. But before we discuss that, we should mention that the income tax is a progressive system. The progression is:

Income under $7000 = 10%
Over $7000 but under $28,400 = $700 (from the first $7000) + 15% of anything over $7000
Over $28,400 but under $68,800 = $3910 + 25% of anything over $28,400
Over $68,800 but under $143,500 = $14,010 + 28% of anything over $68,800
Over $143,500 but under $311,950 = $34,926 + 33% of anything over $143,500
Over $311,950 = $90,515 + 35% of anything over $311,950

So, the MOST a person making $10,000 will pay in income taxes is $1150, or 11.5% of their income. The most a person making $1,000,000 will pay is $331,332.50... or 33.13% of their income. See the disparity here?

Now, you were talking about payroll taxes. Social Security has a cap at $87,000 income and a 6.2% deduction, or a yearly deduction of $5,394. Someone who makes $10,000 a year only pays $620 in FICA. Someone who makes $1,000,000 pays $5394, due to the cap (thankfully). Since the cap is in place, people that earn more than $87,000 are paying more in income taxes than they are in payroll taxes. Thus, the chart I showed you earlier.

Now, think about this logically. What purpose does the Social Security tax serve? It provides for people's retirement when they can't provide for their own. If you made $87,000 a year for 20 years, it's assumed you could provide a much, much better retirement than Social Security, so there's no point in taxing you for something you'll never benefit from. Thus, the 97% of people that make more than $200,000 that have more in income taxes than payroll taxes.

Once again, brief recap:

If you earn $10,000 a year, your income tax will be $1150 (11.5%) and your Social Security payment will be $620 (6.2%), totaling $1770 (17.7%). If you earn $1,000,000, your income tax will be $331,332.50 (33.1%) and your Social Security payment will be $5394 (0.005%), totaling $336,726.50 (33.7%). And you STILL think the "rich" aren't overtaxed?

In other words, I'm right. You are only looking at personal income taxes, which make up only 48% of federal revenues. Try looking at the whole story.

Here's mine: CBO found that the top one percent of households paid 23 percent of all federal taxes that year, including payroll, excise and other federal taxes
Here's a news flash for you bud - personal income taxes make up only 48% of federal revenue.

Since you seem to have some good sources for European tax information, could you recommend some of the more reputable sites.

The OECD site has some pretty good stuff available. You can also check out the revenue departments for each country (but of course most of them are not in English so finding what you want can be hard). The Tax Policy Center is also pretty good. They have a comparison of the tax burdens on averge income workers here.

Since you seem to have some good sources for European tax information, could you recommend some of the more reputable sites.

The OECD site has some pretty good stuff available. You can also check out the revenue departments for each country (but of course most of them are not in English so finding what you want can be hard). The Tax Policy Center is also pretty good. They have a comparison of the tax burdens on averge income workers here.

Then explain how the bulk of the tax cut goes to the very rich.

Maybe because the "rich" - the top 20% of the individual earners in the country - pay over 65% of the income taxes collected each year?

If everyone has their taxes reduced by 10%, well, that means that someone who pays more taxes than you do will get more money back. If you compare the percentages, it's a fair deal. If you compare the scalar quantities that result from those percentages and start talking about "the rich" and "the poor", you've stopped talking about the math, and started trying to manipulate people's emotions.

Since taxes are always computed as percentages of income, falling back to talking about relative scalar quantities for a tax cut or tax increase is a pretty good sign of someone who wants to muddy the issue.

> Actually RICH people pay most of the taxes. And those people own corporations.


a quick google search turned up this document:

Further Examination of the Distribution of Individual Income and Taxes Using a Consistent and Comprehensive Measure of Income

i'll restate my comment, with data from the above document, that refutes your assertion.


the problem is:

99% of the people pay about 70% of the taxes

while

the remaining 1% of the people (who pay about 30% of the taxes) run the largest corporations that give most of the campaign contributions

additionally

46% of the taxes pay for military expenditures, which allow the largest corporations to secure the biggest federal contracts (paid for with tax dollars)


what a fair system.
(campaign contributions remind me of recursive algorithms)