The Top 10% of income earners paid 71% of federal income tax

Originally posted by Drew99GT
Totally bogus information. Those are marginal tax rates that in no way account for deductions and other things that create the affective tax rates someone pays; that is, the amount of income tax paid vs what was earned.

No .. those rates are exactly correct. As for 'deductions' ... each wage earner will have different deductions no matter what income group they are in. Some have deductions for donations; some for energy upgrades to the house; some for one child and others for ten; etc etc. You are just trying to play games with numbers .... EPIC FAIL.

It is VERY clear that the more money a person makes in wages, the higher percent they pay.

Originally posted by beezzer
Let me ask all those who think we should tax the successful more this;

(already asnswered by one poster)

But how much money would you allow the successful to keep?

How much is good for you?

This isn't a question that can be answered with a figure, it's a question that is answered with philosophy.


It's quite a simple answer actually... However much they can keep whilst simultaneously providing the bottom earners with a decent standard of living.

A decent standard of living INCLUDES NOT BEING OVER WORKED. We have enough people on the planet that nobody should have to work their entire life just to live.


I.E.

A top earner who earns money because he has money and does not work should not exist if at the cost of the bottom earners starving and living homeless.

People are NOT starving because they have a lack of ambition. Have you ever starved? I promise you somebody starving has more ambition than somebody loafing away.

Having money does not equate to having a good education.

Having money does not equate to being smart.

Having money does not equate to your ambition or will/drive to work.

These are all political fallacies. There are a ton of smart people here, a ton of graduates.... a ton of people looking for work where there is none to be found.....

This isn't the fault of the person -- it's the fault of the economic system.


I.E.

It's not Lazy vs Productive.

It's consolidated wealth leaves none left for those who don't already have it.


A simple analogy -- There are 5 of us and we decide to build a house. You draw up the blue prints, and the other 4 people build it.

It takes you an hour to draw, it takes us 20 to build.

We are all hungry at the end and decide to eat a pizza.

There are 8 slices for 5 people, yet since you did the job that gets paid the most, you get to have 5 pieces, whilst the other 4 people get to have 1.

The problem here is that, there is 5 people, 8 slices, you get 5, which leaves 3 left over -- but 4 people to feed on the 3, which means one person isn't eating.

How much should the rich get to keep? 4. Because at least there is enough for everybody who contributes then. Is 4 that different from 5? It's more than the average person can/should eat by themselves.



I.E.

1 billion vs 50 million. Is 50 million not enough for you?

We aren't saying take away the excess, we are saying take away the SUPER GROSSLY SELFISH excess. Poor people don't want rich people to be poor. Hell, we don't want them not to be rich. We just want them to stop being greedy.

It's not a hard concept.

Originally posted by beezzer
But how much money would you allow the successful to keep?

How much is good for you?

As much as they can accumulate, as far as I'm concerned.
The more they want to gain, the more they should want to give back.
They can still save up as much as they want. I have no problem with that.

Originally posted by Laokin
It's not Lazy vs Productive.

Sometimes it really is.
www.youtube.com...

It's consolidated wealth leaves none left for those who don't already have it

You'd put caps on how much a person could earn?
So you'd steal from the productive to give to the unproductive?
Or worse .. steal it from those who earn it and give it to the state.
Slavery to the state.

No thanks.

reply to post by Laokin
Well, you're right in that it is a philosophical question.

It all depends on what your philosophy is, isn't it?

Does my money belong to me? Is it mine? Do you have a right to ask/demand it? Just because you may feel entitled to my money, doesn't mean I have to give it to you.

Every time this issue comes up the same old tired arguments are dredged up and improperly used statistics are cited. Herre are some facts:

1. The country is teetering on bankruptcy.

2. The government is printing money to forestall the inevitable collapse while happily incresing their spending and expansion

3. The government is substantially made up of people in the top 10% (average roughly 6x the networth of average Americans)

So if government is over-spending it isn't our doing. We have no say. They do what they want at the behest of their benefactors and friends. Insider trading, K-street lobbiests, cronism, the whole gamut. Meanwhile, they streadily devalue the dollar which disproportionatley hurts lower income deciles. This forces more people toward poverty and in need of assistance to survive.

Should the government curtail run-away spending? Of course they should. But they won't. Because there is WAY too much money to be made through their various activities, departments and wars.

The top 10% rake in over 50% of all income in the country. That's 10x more than the bottom 90%. The top 10% own 88% of all investment assets. Forget who pays what percent of total taxes collected. That would only mean something if we were remotely paying our bills as a country.

Here are the satistics thath matter:

Source 1

Source 2

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by Drew99GT

 

So you're trying to justify theft. The wealthy already pay a higher percent. But that isn't enough for you, is it?

Equating taxes with theft is more demagoguery non sense.

The numbers don't lie; the top 1%, as a percentage of how much they earn compared to how much in taxes they pay currently, is historically low.

As to how much they should pay? Well, how about this. Back when the top income tax bracket was 92% in 1953, the United States had the lowest average unemployment at 2.5%.

Do those facts work for ya?

www.davemanuel.com...

www.taxpolicycenter.org...

You can argue that the main reason the highest marginal rate back then was 92% because of WWII, and you'd be right. And I can argue that the top marginal rate should be much higher than 35% currently because of the War in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, both of which have added 4 trillion to the deficit. If these ultra rich want war, they should pay for it themselves instead of making our kids do it.

source

reply to post by Skyfloating


Yea but your missing out on the loophole. People who have tons of money, invest that money, the money they make on the investment is not considered income and therefore it isn't taxed. Statistics are a tricky thing, and having just one, or without explaining how you got to them, or giving all the data, thet can be incredibly misleading.

Originally posted by subject x

Originally posted by beezzer
But how much money would you allow the successful to keep?

How much is good for you?

As much as they can accumulate, as far as I'm concerned.
The more they want to gain, the more they should want to give back.
They can still save up as much as they want. I have no problem with that.

Okay. Then why (using your logic) does the US tax corporations such a high amount that they leave the US?

50% of 10 is alot less than 20% of 100.

If the government stopped taxing so much, more would actually go into government because more people would be in the states earning more.

Originally posted by unityemissions
what better way than to have this class warfare you seem to be unwittingly pushing?

You put out controlled informational bits like this, and have seemingly intelligent fools push it to the rest of us via government agencies, MSM, and even online social networking moderators.

You're overreacting. I posted this for debate purpose because the consensus seems to be that the rich dont pay enough taxes. I wouldnt say that having intelligent debate instigates "class warfare".

Since you seem to think the poor are poor off, let me leave you with this quote from a philosopher (forget which):

"Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it"

Originally posted by jtma508
Every time this issue comes up the same old tired arguments are dredged up and improperly used statistics are cited. Herre are some facts:

1. The country is teetering on bankruptcy.

2. The government is printing money to forestall the inevitable collapse while happily incresing their spending and expansion

3. The government is substantially made up of people in the top 10% (average roughly 6x the networth of average Americans)

So if government is over-spending it isn't our doing. We have no say. They do what they want at the behest of their benefactors and friends. Insider trading, K-street lobbiests, cronism, the whole gamut. Meanwhile, they streadily devalue the dollar which disproportionatley hurts lower income deciles. This forces more people toward poverty and in need of assistance to survive.

Should the government curtail run-away spending? Of course they should. But they won't. Because there is WAY too much money to be made through their various activities, departments and wars.

The top 10% rake in over 50% of all income in the country. That's 10x more than the bottom 90%. The top 10% own 88% of all investment assets. Forget who pays what percent of total taxes collected. That would only mean something if we were remotely paying our bills as a country.

Here are the satistics thath matter:

Source 1

Source 2

It's more dubious and devious than being greedy. The government wants the citizens to NEED assistance. They want us to HAVE to rely on them and treat them as the peoples savior.

It's a form of control and stipulates the climate necessary for stripping our freedom and our sovereignty. This is what happens when super rich people get super rich.


Name a super rich guy that doesn't think he's better than you....

It doesn't exist, they feel they are superior and we are inferior, hence the manipulation for the control of society.

And I mean, they must be superior right? They are the richest people in the world... most of them born into the riches and never had to work a day in their life....

*Gag*

That last line was sarcasm, in case your detectors fail you.

It never fails that when someone points out some statistic regarding how much the top ten percent of earners pay in taxes the "they should pay their fair share" arguments invariably follow. What rarely happens - unless a wildcard such as myself or a few other members in this site enter the fray - is a discussion on whether a tax on income in perpetuity is fair, and if there even is such a thing as a "fair" tax, and most importantly why do so many Americans today believe that we could not even function as a nation without an income tax?

If there were no income tax then it would be a statistical fact that everyone would be paying "their fair share" to that nonexistent tax.

Everyone paying 0% of federal income taxes is the only way we will ever even get close to "fair share of taxes", regarding income.

Income is a necessity of living and is therefore a right. It is outrageous to argue that a perpetual income tax is a necessity if we are to have government. It is more intellectually honest to argue that we must have a tax on income in perpetuity in order to have big government. It is even more intellectually honest to argue that we must have income taxation at all times so we can fund a military industrial complex so we can fight all these constant wars, not just on other nations, but on ideological groups such as terrorists, but not even just military strategy type groups, we need to fund the war on poverty, and the war on drugs, and the war on hate crimes, and the war on intolerance, and the war on minorities, and the war on...

If we truly understand all this perpetual income tax is funding it becomes absurdly comical to argue that the rich should fund their fair share of all of this oppression and war and military industrial complexes. Such an argument is only one step removed from making the argument that the rich should be the ones funding governments trampling of rights of the poor, after all, it is really unfair to tax the poor so they can fund their own oppressors. If anyone should fund their own oppressors, it should be the rich.

Taxes are a necessary part of government. If we are to have government, we need to have taxes to fund that government. This reality does not trap people into an endless cycle of yearly filing of income statements and paying "their fair share". There are a multitude of other ways to tax it is just that none of the other ways are as nearly as lucrative for big government as income taxation is.

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Originally posted by unityemissions
what better way than to have this class warfare you seem to be unwittingly pushing?

You put out controlled informational bits like this, and have seemingly intelligent fools push it to the rest of us via government agencies, MSM, and even online social networking moderators.

You're overreacting. I posted this for debate purpose because the consensus seems to be that the rich dont pay enough taxes. I wouldnt say that having intelligent debate instigates "class warfare".

Since you seem to think the poor are poor off, let me leave you with this quote from a philosopher (forget which):

"Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it"

Only it's not an intelligent debate. It's blatant misinformation due to your lack of understanding in math. So now we have pages of idiots clamoring that they now have been reinforced in their naive beliefs, maintaining ignorance, not quashing it -- which is the purpose of an intelligent debate.

Hence, making this thread counter-intuitive to intelligence and further promoting ignorant stereotypes.

If it's not a lack of understanding in math, then there was a clear agenda with this thread which means you know exactly what you did.

So I'm going to presume you've made a naive mistake, rather than to jump to the conclusion that this thread is part of a conspiracy itself.

However, it can only be one or the other. There is no third option.

Occam's Razor presumes the former, so, that's the one I'll go with.

reply to post by Skyfloating

Since you seem to think the poor are poor off, let me leave you with this quote from a philosopher (forget which):

"Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it"

~William Hazlitt~

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
It never fails that when someone points out some statistic regarding how much the top ten percent of earners pay in taxes the "they should pay their fair share" arguments invariably follow. What rarely happens - unless a wildcard such as myself or a few other members in this site enter the fray - is a discussion on whether a tax on income in perpetuity is fair, and if there even is such a thing as a "fair" tax, and most importantly why do so many Americans today believe that we could not even function as a nation without an income tax?

If there were no income tax then it would be a statistical fact that everyone would be paying "their fair share" to that nonexistent tax.

Everyone paying 0% of federal income taxes is the only way we will ever even get close to "fair share of taxes", regarding income.

Income is a necessity of living and is therefore a right. It is outrageous to argue that a perpetual income tax is a necessity if we are to have government. It is more intellectually honest to argue that we must have a tax on income in perpetuity in order to have big government. It is even more intellectually honest to argue that we must have income taxation at all times so we can fund a military industrial complex so we can fight all these constant wars, not just on other nations, but on ideological groups such as terrorists, but not even just military strategy type groups, we need to fund the war on poverty, and the war on drugs, and the war on hate crimes, and the war on intolerance, and the war on minorities, and the war on...

If we truly understand all this perpetual income tax is funding it becomes absurdly comical to argue that the rich should fund their fair share of all of this oppression and war and military industrial complexes. Such an argument is only one step removed from making the argument that the rich should be the ones funding governments trampling of rights of the poor, after all, it is really unfair to tax the poor so they can fund their own oppressors. If anyone should fund their own oppressors, it should be the rich.

Taxes are a necessary part of government. If we are to have government, we need to have taxes to fund that government. This reality does not trap people into an endless cycle of yearly filing of income statements and paying "their fair share". There are a multitude of other ways to tax it is just that none of the other ways are as nearly as lucrative for big government as income taxation is.

I do agree wholeheartedly, however; if you don't collect a tax on income, the government must remain small.

I think this is actually a fact -- in that, in order to be free and have your fair and unalienable rights that government must remain small.

I'm in favor of small government -- no taxes, but people will then attempt to label me something to bag me with the rest of the people they feel are ignorant, when it is they themselves that don't understand the eventualities that MUST take place with a big government.

All eventualities that are counter to the founding of freedom. Like freedom should of had to have been found in the first place......

A star for you, kind sir.

Originally posted by beezzer
Okay. Then why (using your logic) does the US tax corporations such a high amount that they leave the US?

Well, I was talking about personal income tax, not corporate tax, but I would say it's because the corporations are run by greedy, unscruplous, ungrateful, "unpatriotic" people who either don't realize or don't care that they're undermining the system that brought them such wealth to begin with,

If the government stopped taxing so much, more would actually go into government because more people would be in the states earning more.

If they were "good corporate citizens", they wouldn't resent what basicly would amount to nothing more than a slight deceleration on their accumulation of wealth. So instead of taking 5 years to amass more money than anyone could possibly ever need, it might take them 10 years to amass more money than anyone could possibly ever need.

I don't see the problem with that.

reply to post by Skyfloating


It's not intelligent debate, and I'm not overreacting.

You're pushing propaganda. I have good reason to be passionately against it.

I see through this bs, and can bet a good chunk of the people can as well. You don't think lying to the down trodden is going to eventually cause class warefare??



As for your quote, tell that to all the families being broken up over the last few years as w result of all the lies and failed policies.

Originally posted by subject x

Originally posted by beezzer
Okay. Then why (using your logic) does the US tax corporations such a high amount that they leave the US?

Well, I was talking about personal income tax, not corporate tax, but I would say it's because the corporations are run by greedy, unscruplous, ungrateful, "unpatriotic" people who either don't realize or don't care that they're undermining the system that brought them such wealth to begin with,

If the government stopped taxing so much, more would actually go into government because more people would be in the states earning more.

If they were "good corporate citizens", they wouldn't resent what basicly would amount to nothing more than a slight deceleration on their accumulation of wealth. So instead of taking 5 years to amass more money than anyone could possibly ever need, it might take them 10 years to amass more money than anyone could possibly ever need.

I don't see the problem with that.

Right. It's the greed of the corporations, it's not that they can't afford said corporate tax, it's that they choose profit margin over fairness for their workers.

If we decided as a group that it will cost 10$ in gas to get to the concert each -- and we all presume it's fair, but one guy -- that one guy will then seek a ride that cost him less than 10$ hence inflating the amount that we have to pay each to compensate for his greed.

I.E.

No matter what you set the corporate tax at, if there is a place you can run your business and pay less, there will be people who do exactly that. It's an issue of greed.



The argument can always be boiled down to, quick money vs slow money.

Ideally quick money should gain you more in a faster time but less over all, and slow money should gain you more over all and less in a smaller space of time.

The problem is, people figured out how to get quick money with the benefits of slow money, meaning they can make large sums of cash really quick for eternity, essentially allowing them to mass ridiculous amounts of money for such little time investment.

The outcome of this becomes consolidation of wealth, which results in people starving to death with far sub-optimal standard of living.

These same people then see money as power, and as a result see themselves as superior beings to those that are starving -- stimulating a bigoted point of view against the less fortunate, which then turns around and causes them to wish to control these people as slaves to do their bidding.

And hence the eventuality is one of mass government screwing it's people, since government is controlled by these megalomaniac rich people with superiority complex.

Which leaves the rest of us out to dry.

Greed = Associating money with power. Greed is caused by a lust for dominance. It's quite a simple psychological trap.

Originally posted by Laokin
FLAT = Fair.

You are saying Flat-Tax is fair? OK, fair enough. I wouldnt much mind flat tax. It would make things more simple, and simple is good because you cant manipulate as easily.

Same old tune

Base an entire tax structure and social program revenue generation on a demographic that only accounts for around 10 million people paying 71% of the taxes.

So let's break that down for the reading impaired less than 10 million are paying for more out of 330 million American any who says they aren't paying their fair share are idiots.

The truth hurts and sorry only and idiot says someone who is making 30k in a year is paying more than someone making 1 million.

Hell the so called billionaire paying a measely 15% on just 1 billion is paying 150 million in taxes.

Are Americans really that ignorant hell basic math skills can get any more basic than that.