Who are the 47%? ~ 70% pay income taxes - 17% are seniors.

Let’s take a closer look at the 46.4 percenters.

According to the Tax Policy Center, about half of those who owe no federal income tax are people whose incomes are so low that when standard income tax provisions — personal exemptions for taxpayers and dependents and the standard deduction — are factored in, that simply leaves no income to be taxed. Those are people who earned less than about $27,000.

But that doesn’t mean those folks paid no taxes at all. Many of them paid payroll taxes, those taxes taken out of a paycheck by an employer to fund programs such as Social Security and Medicare. They also pay federal excise taxes, such as those on gasoline, and they may also pay state and local income taxes or property taxes.

So that’s half of Romney’s 46.4 percenters. The rest pay no federal income tax due to tax benefits and credits. Here’s the rest of the breakdown:

22 percent receive senior tax benefits — the extra standard deduction for seniors, the exclusion of a portion of Social Security benefits, and the credit for seniors. Most of them are older people on Social Security whose adjusted gross income is less than $25,000.

15.2 percent receive tax credits for children and the working poor. That includes the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. The child tax credit was enacted under Democratic President Bill Clinton, but it doubled under Republican President George W. Bush. The earned income tax credit was enacted under Republican President Gerald Ford, and was expanded under presidents of both parties. Republican President Ronald Reagan once praised it as “one of the best antipoverty programs this country’s ever seen.” As a result of various tax expenditures, about two thirds of households with children making between $40,000 and $50,000 owed no federal income taxes.

The rest ended up owing no federal income tax due to various tax expenditures such as education credits, itemized deductions or reduced rates on capital gains and dividends. Most of this group are in the middle to upper income brackets. In fact, the TPC estimates there are about 7,000 families and individuals who earn $1 million a year or more and still pay no federal income tax.

So when Romney says all of those in the 46 percent are “dependent on government,” that’s not accurate. Of the estimated 76 million who paid no federal income tax in 2011, 61 percent earned anywhere between $10,000 and $50,000.

Are the 46.4 Percenters All Democrats?

Romney also said the 46.4 percent who pay no federal income tax “will vote for the president no matter what,” and, therefore, President Obama starts off with an automatic 48 percent or 49 percent of the vote. But that doesn’t jibe with polling data.

It’s safe to say that most of the 46.4 percent referred to by Romney are in the lower income brackets. According to the most recent Gallup polls of registered voters, 37 percent of those making less than $36,000 a year indicate they plan to vote for Romney. Moreover, as we noted earlier, a sizable chunk of 46.4 percenters are retirees, and among those 65 and older, Romney leads Obama by nine points, 52 percent to 43 percent. According to a Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters between Sept. 10 and 16, 40 percent of those making less than $20,000 said they plan to vote for Romney; 50 percent of those making between $20,000 and $40,000 said they supported Romney. The Pew Research Center similarly found in its latest poll that 32 percent of those making less than $30,000 and 42 percent of those making between $30,000 and $50,000 support Romney — as do a plurality of seniors.

A map put out by the Tax Foundation of the 10 states with the highest and lowest percentage of filers with no federal tax liability shows that the states with the highest percentage of non-filers are, by-and-large, states that typically vote Republican...