an excellent read from the ACLU

(GMAN) writes:

In article , "Trevor" wrote:

"Pete Stavrakoglou" wrote in message
...

Greece is in the state it's in because of government spending, overly
generous government benefits, lack of adequate tax collection,

Dead right there, just as the US would be OK *IF* they actually collected
taxes from the rich and big corporations.

Oh please, 40+ percent of the US doesnt even pay a penny in taxes where the
rich pay approx 52%

That's nonsense.

Income taxes are not the only taxes; there are property taxes and sales
taxes and social security taxes and so forth.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

"Pete Stavrakoglou" wrote in message
...
My figures are correct, check them out for yourself rather than just
dismissing them.

It's impossible to properly determine with the publicly available data.

And about my "limiting" the argument solely to federal income taxes - the
myriad of statem, city, and local taxes across the country make it almost
impossible to gather that type of data for a usenet discussion. You're
welcome to do it if you'd like. Still, the statistics I noted are correct,
why do you have a problem with that?

Because it is disingenuous to focus solely on one out of a hundred taxes and
claim that means anything to the average person. As I said all along, the
rich WANT less income tax which has always been progressive (rightly so IMO)
and more flat taxes of all kinds, and are consistantly getting their way.
YOU are simply championing there cause.
The fact that the gap in disposable income between rich and poor has
increased immensely over the last 50 years is NO coincidence. Why not FOCUS
on that?

Trevor.

"PeterN" wrote in message
...
EOD

Or perhaps just E&OE :-)

Trevor.

"tony cooper" wrote in message
...
That "pay zero federal income taxes" is spin.

Right.

The bottom 50% of the wage earners loan the government money for
twelve months of the year. If they're earning a wage, withholding is
taken out. They may get back part or all of that money as a refund,
but they don't have use of the money until the refund is received.

If you think a small percentage get back ALL of their income tax payments,
let alone 50%, I've got a harbour bridge I'd like to sell you! :-)
In fact it's more often the rich with the best accountants and miracle
accounting schemes that pay no income tax :-(

Trevor.

"GMAN" wrote in message
...
And on top of getting it all back, so many people squirt out endless
little
kids and get thousands given to them that they didnt even earn via Child
Tax
Credits etc... Why should i pay taxes just so those popping out endless
kids
can get my hard earned money?

No argument there, poor OR rich, the world has morer than enough people!
Over here you can't even claim travel expenses for getting to work, (unless
you have a company car) yet even the rich can claim child care expenses.
It's easy to tell it's not poor people who make the rules!

Trevor.

"GMAN" wrote in message
...
Greece is in the state it's in because of government spending, overly
generous government benefits, lack of adequate tax collection,

Dead right there, just as the US would be OK *IF* they actually collected
taxes from the rich and big corporations.

Oh please, 40+ percent of the US doesnt even pay a penny in taxes where
the
rich pay approx 52%


Once again you are sadly deluded or are deliberately ignoring the vast
majority of taxes collected to pretend the rich are hard done by.
What's the matter, can't afford a new Ferrari this year?

Trevor.

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 13/12/2011 13:44, Pete Stavrakoglou wrote:
Per my last post. The top 1% pay over 40% of all federal income taxes,
the top
5% over 70% and te top 10% over 80%. You can take all of the money rich
people
have and it would not put a dent in the deficit because our federal
government
has an insatiable appetite to spend.

You appear to be confusing marginal rates of taxation with actual taxes
paid

On available evidence he is too stupid to realise that!

and that still assumes the highest earners do not cheat.

Which of course the do at a FAR bigger rate than low income earners, since
they have better accountants and lawyers.


See for example the graph of top US marginal rate of taxation 1916-2010
and you can quickly understand why the US is near bankrupt now.

http://visualizingeconomics.com/2011...tes-1916-2010/

Or you can look at historical tax rates by income group

http://visualizingeconomics.com/2007...-income-group/

Left as an excercise for the reader to compute the actual tax take from
each sector.

What is entirely certain is that your claim is total garbage.

The present US system is geared to making the already super rich elite
with influence who can bribe politicians ever richer.


Now THAT is beyond dispute unfortunately, and NOT just in the USA! :-( :-(

Trevor.

"tony cooper" wrote in message
...
If you get back that $100 that you sent in you paid zero.

How do you function in society if you don't understand the impact of
having your take-home pay reduced by $100 a month because you are
loaning someone else $100 a month even if you eventually get that
money back?

I've yet to meet one of these mythical workers who pays zero income tax in
any case. Over here you pay income tax on any income over $6,000, and it's
pretty hard to live on $6,000!
And that's STILL ignoring a hundred other taxes, levies, duties, excises,
surcharges etc. at federal state and local levels you still have to pay! :-(

Trevor.

"Martin Brown" wrote:
On 13/12/2011 13:44, Pete Stavrakoglou wrote:

Per my last post. The top 1% pay over 40% of all federal income taxes,
the top
5% over 70% and te top 10% over 80%. You can take all of the money rich
people
have and it would not put a dent in the deficit because our federal
government
has an insatiable appetite to spend.

You appear to be confusing marginal rates of taxation with actual taxes
paid - and that still assumes the highest earners do not cheat.

Even worse, he's wrong on the facts of the claim. The top 1% of income
earners in the US earn 24% of all income earned in the US. So you could run
the government quite nicely if you took all the rich folk's income.

The bottom 50%, on the other hand, earn so little money that you couldn't
run the government even if you took it all.

See for example the graph of top US marginal rate of taxation 1916-2010
and you can quickly understand why the US is near bankrupt now.

http://visualizingeconomics.com/2011...tes-1916-2010/

Or you can look at historical tax rates by income group

http://visualizingeconomics.com/2007...-income-group/

Left as an excercise for the reader to compute the actual tax take from
each sector.

What is entirely certain is that your claim is total garbage.

The present US system is geared to making the already super rich elite
with influence who can bribe politicians ever richer.

Exactly.

Simply returning high end tax rates to even GHWBush era levels would fix the
deficit instantly and easily. And simply dropping the cap on payroll taxes
would fix Social Security for ever.

Medicare, however, is much much harder. (Making Medicare cover everyone and
charging a premium indexed to one's income tax payment would give us time to
work on the problems of medical care and costs. The stuff in PPACA other
than the insurance rules makes a good start on getting US medical costs
under control, though.)

--
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"tony cooper" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:09:59 -0500, "Pete Stavrakoglou"
wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:17:09 -0500, "Pete Stavrakoglou"
wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message
m...
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:41:46 -0500, "Pete Stavrakoglou"
wrote:

"Trevor" wrote in message
...

"tony cooper" wrote in message
news Governments do the buying with taxpayers money, taxpayers rarely have
any
say in it.

The government employees who do the buying are, themselves, taxpayers.
In fact, they are sharing the burden more than many since they are
employed - usually at rather good salaries

That's the problem, it's not their money they waste, and they usually
have
a
far better life style than many others.


and paying income taxes, property taxes, and taxes on purchases.

Which is why they love flat taxes so much. The old days of progressive
taxes
where those who could afford it actually paid more, are just about gone
unfortunately. The new paradigm is the richer you are, the better the
accountant you can afford, shelf companies you can set up, family trusts
you
can utilise, off shore tax havens you can register, and the less tax you
actually pay. The tax burdon now falls almost entirely on the middle
class
and
poorest members of the community because they have no ability to escape
it.

Trevor.

Your claim tha the burden falls on the middle class is wrong. 40% of all
federal income taxes are paid by the top 1%, the top 5% pay over 70% of
all
federal income taxes, the top 10% pay over 80% of all federal income
taxes.

The validity of the claim depends on what you think "the burden"
means. If you consider that the group paying the highest percentage
of all income taxes paid has the burden, then the statement is wrong.
If you consider that the group paying out the highest percentage of
their income has the burden, then the statement is correct.

There's no obfuscating on this. The "rich" pay their fair share while the
bottom 50% of income earners pay zero federal income taxes. The top 10% of
earners are shouldering the tax burden for 80% of the country. That is
quite
a
"burden" no matter how you try to spin it.

Speaking of spin...the original statement deals with the middle class.
What you have pointed out is that the *bottom* 50% of the wage earners
pay no taxes.

I pointed out a lot more than that and I'm not the one trying to spin this one
Tony, you are.


That "pay zero federal income taxes" is spin.

The bottom 50% of the wage earners loan the government money for
twelve months of the year. If they're earning a wage, withholding is
taken out. They may get back part or all of that money as a refund,
but they don't have use of the money until the refund is received.

Also "spin" is "fair share".

Are you serious? They get all their money back (some even get more than that in
credits) and you're going to say that it's spin when I say they don't pay
federal income taxes? What a ridiculous thing to say. BTW, anyone can easily
change their withholding so that they don't get a refund which means they don't
make that "loan" as you call it, to the fed.