Does the top 1% of the income bracket pay 40% of income taxes....

[Flabbergasted]

I've been studying the following chart for a while....

http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22652.html

and haven't quite figured out if the chart is accurate. It seems these numbers could be fudged in certain ways.

For example: I wonder why they used AGI?


My confession: I'm really not great at economics or accounting. Help!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Yeah, but....

They control more than 39.38% of the wealth.

That's the con job.

[Benhurst]

2. Yeah, like Mitt promising to do away with "death duties."

Wake up, America!

[Initech]

5. I think that number's gone up significantly in the last few years.

More like 60 - 65% of the wealth. If you look at what those greedy assholes, like Ken Lay or Lee Raymond or Dennis Koczwalski, for example, have taken from their companies, it makes more sense. If I worked for one of those companies, I would have got my co-workers together to rise up as one and slay them.

[SharonAnn]

21. Right. What % of the income do they receive?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. Mid 40's.

It's deceptive because you're talking about percentages of the largest economy in the world.

A 10th of a percentile in a $13.3T economy is enormous.

Let's just say they ain't hurtin'.

[aquart]

3. Oh, dear lord.

Are you really falling for that?

Yes, I guess you are.

[Flabbergasted]

6. Oh yes. And it's obvious the filthy trash are not paying their fair share.

sarcasm

[WCGreen]

4. The real subject you should key in on is that they have the most to

loose if something should happen to the country...

If the courts stop function, which, BTW, mostly make sure that wealth is preserved...

That figure also doesn't take into consideration how much money is generated from owning assets which couldn't happen if the US system wasn't geared toward protecting wealth via the federal government...

[Hamlette]

7. completely misleading

top 1% make 22% of income pay 39% of FEDERAL INCOME taxes. If you count FICA, state taxes and sales taxes which are all less progressive, you'll have a number the tax nuts who run this site don't want you to see.

[The Magistrate]

8. They Are In Spitting Distance Of Accuracy, Sir

But do ignore important elements of the actual picture.

First, taxable income is not a particularly good measure of wealth. It is likely this chart ignores, for instance, capital gains, which are taxed at much lower rate than wage income. It certainly omits ownership of assets, from stocks and bonds down to homes. The fact is that the proportion of income taxes paid correlates roughly with proportion of asset wealth owned, though this is largely by accident, not design in the code.

Second, for persons in lower income segments, a variety of taxes that are only nominal to the higher income groups become an appreciable proportion of income. Items like sales tax, various excises on utilities and other products like spirits and tobacco, and the indirect taxation of rent, which always contains the property tax levied on the landlord, and the indirect taxation included in the prices of goods and services, which of course always contain the taxes on businesses, ensure that persons in lower income income brackets, while they pay little federal income tax, pay a very high proportion of their income in taxes, often on behalf of someone else.

Generally, concentration on federal income tax in a presentation is a signal the intention of the presenter is to distort the situation.

[Xipe Totec]

10. As I've said before, it's not what you own that maters, it's who you own.

Money is just an indirect and imperfect measure of power.

[Flabbergasted]

15. Thanks Mag.

[The Magistrate]

19. You Are Welcome, Sir. Ms. Hamlette Makes a Good Point As Well, Above

The FICA tax is a tax, a Federal tax on wage income, though presented at times as a species of insurance premium, and itd substantially exempts the highest salaried. Further, though presented as split into an employee contribution and an employer contribution, in fact the entire tax falls on wages, and the total of both portions in truth comes out of the wage of the employee.

[Xipe Totec]

9. Yea, that's about 5% of what they take from our pockets nt

[dsc]

11. I am sure their figures are in the ball park

but recall that every other tax works the opposite way and that income taxes make up only 43% of total revenue. Social Security makes up 35%.

[Bucky]

12. Remember that you want to tax luxuries.

The top 1% of earners do not earn more than 40% of all US incomes. But they probably do spend more than 40% of the money spent on luxury items. And that's what you want to tax--luxuries, not the necessities of life.

[hyphenate]

13. That is true on the surface

but there are many, many ways that tax loopholes prevent that top 1-2% from ever really paying that much. If even 1% of that 1% pay anywhere NEAR that percentage, I'd be surprised.

[sandnsea]

14. Because they have all the income and wealth

If you have 40% of a country's income, it stands to reason you're going to pay 40% of its taxes. That's the kind of income disparity there is.

[baldguy]

16. They used AGI because it's easier to fudge the numbers.

What you should be looking at is wealth. The top 1% OWNS almost 40% of the country.

http://www.therationalradical.com/dsep/wealth-distribution.htm

[napi21]

17. There are a lot of unanswered questions about that 1% figure.

One question I always ask but never find out is where do corporate taxes fit into that? Are they considered in the top 1%? Notice they never say for sure "top 1% of individual income earners" and corporate profit is still income. I admit I've never really searched, but I'd like to see a breakdown of exactly where all the federal taxes come from. How much comes from individual tax payers, how much from corp, how much from excise taxes, etc. No one ever publishes THAT!

[Union Thug]

18. Has anyone looked at the wealth of the top 1% on the L-Curve?

These people should being paying 90% of the taxes. THe kind of money we're talking about is beyond our ability to comprehend.

Check it: http://www.lcurve.org/

Any wealth 'one-percenter' who complains about taxes should immediately be taken to the guillotine.

[MiniMe]

20. Don't the top 1% control something like 90% of the wealth?

I'm pulling that number out of my ass, but I do think I have heard it before.

[Kansas Wyatt]

22. Tax Them To Extinction

Send them a card from the working people in this country, welcoming them to the real world.

Oh fuck it! They don't even deserve the card.