The top 50% of taxpayers pay 97% of all federal taxes.
How could this be considered unfair to the poor and middle class? The poor and middle class only pay 3% of all taxes, whereas the rich pay the rest?
How in any sense of the word does that make it "unfair"? If the tax system is unfair to anyone, it's unfairly punitive to the rich!
40% of working US adults pay ZERO taxes, and a high percentage pay a negative amount of taxes, via the welfare/food stamps/Medicaid benefits they receive.
Where do people come up with this stuff? Are they really that mathematically stupid or do they think they can fool otherwise-ignorant people into believing the rich are somehow benefiting.
My father makes $250,000 a year and pays $118,000 in taxes. It would take me three years to earn $118,000. So how is his tax burden "unfair" to me? That's impossible!
They also tend to overlook the fact that the 'rich' are the risk takers and the business owners who employ them. They create jobs for people and have take the responsbility of ensuring pay packets at the end of the month. You don't stay rich by hoarding money, but by ploughing it stright back into something productive. They deserve all the help they can get.
As a function of the amount of wealth controlled, the wealthy pay considerably LESS than their "fair share" of income taxes. The top 10% of all taxpayers pay about 85% of all taxes but control over 95% of all wealth.
There's no way that your father pays $118,000 per year in income taxes. Even if he's single and has no dependents, his Federal income tax liability would be less than $65,000. Even in the highest tax states his state income tax liability would be on the order of $20,000 or less. Even if he is self-employed and paid around $19k in self-employment taxes that is well below $118k.
Well, to begin with, you sometimes talk about apples and sometimes talk about oranges and compare the two -- sorry, that doesn't work out mathematically, maybe that's why you are confused.
The top 50% of taxpayers who supposedly pay 97% of the taxes includes corporations as well as well-to-do individuals. Since these large corporations make mega millions of dollars, they pay big bucks in taxes (even after all the tax breaks Congress gives them every year). So you can't compare this figure to poor and middle class individuals tax since you are comparing substantial corporate taxes against individual taxes.
I certainly don't know where you came up with the figure that the poor and middle class only pay 3% of taxes. Since the lowest tax rate is 10% and the highest is 32% on what is now considered upper middle income, your estimate seems way below the bounds.
And, isn't it a little unfair to include people living on social security and small retirement income in this category of "poor and middle class?" In order to get to your calculation, you would have to include them and all the welfare families in this category to get the tax rate this low. Since none of these people are earning a wage, it is grossly unfair to include their meager incomes into the middle income category. This only achieves a very unfair low rate of taxes without providing an accurate picture of anything.
Why don't you break out the "middle income" families and compare their total gross incomes and total taxes paid. Then find out what the highest income individuals had in total gross incomes and the total taxes paid. I would bet you that the middle income families are paying a higher percentage of income as taxes than the wealthiest families in the US.
One reason the wealthy pay less taxes is that interest and dividends are taxed at the flat rate of 15%. Who collects the most in interest and dividends? The wealthy!!! This means that the majority of their income is taxed at 15%, not up to 32% as wages are taxed.
When the flat rate tax on interest and dividends was enacted under George Bush, it was determined that average citizens would save $11.72 per year, while the 1% of wealthiest would save over $700,000 per year. Do you see any discrepancy in that ratio?
If 40% of working US adults pay ZERO taxes as YOU STATE, then they are working for minimum wage (or less), and are trying to support kids with it -- you try it for a while and see how easy it is. I don't know where you got this figure, but it is WRONG.
Where did you get all this STUFF you are spouting as real -- none of your figures appear to be verifiable. Maybe others are not as stupid as you claim they are.
Maybe you should seek better, more accurate, statistics and learn how to read them so you get a clear picture rather than take some of the garbage statistics that are circulating today. It's a sorry state of affairs that persons on TV and radio are making millions of dollars to spew out nonsense data like you have just repeated. They do it to stir up trouble and make their ratings higher so they can demand more money -- less than honorable motives -- don't take their garbage for real facts.
As far as you father is concerned, the highest federal income tax (32% after standard deductions and exemptions) he would pay is $71,000+ on his income; where he is paying the other $48,000- you don't say; but this is very high for state taxes.