Half the country paying nothing ....

• RedRider1

  

  I think an article I read said that the top 10% of income earners (>$350k-ish) pay nearly 75% of income taxes.
  
  I guess that's the 80/20 principle on full display.
• LJ

  

  Bigdogg wrote: I find it funny that the thread I started is included under a poster on my ignore list. Evidently all of my posts are being censored first. Got to love some of our God fearing, leave your hands of my rights, members on here.

  Well, first thing is you need to either empty your PM box, un ignore me, or turn your PM's on and I would have sent you a PM explaining why. See you both made the same thread, Quaker posted his at 9am and you at 10am, therefore, when the threads get merged (because there is no need to clutter this forum with 2 threads on the same issue) his shows up above yours. You were not censored at all.
  
  Have a nice day
• QuakerOats

  LJ wrote:

  Bigdogg wrote: I find it funny that the thread I started is included under a poster on my ignore list. Evidently all of my posts are being censored first. Got to love some of our God fearing, leave your hands of my rights, members on here.

  Well, first thing is you need to either empty your PM box, un ignore me, or turn your PM's on and I would have sent you a PM explaining why. See you both made the same thread, Quaker posted his at 9am and you at 10am, therefore, when the threads get merged (because there is no need to clutter this forum with 2 threads on the same issue) his shows up above yours. You were not censored at all.
  
  Have a nice day

  I thought you were going to say that I had pre-empt capabilties at all times.
• IggyPride00

  

  I think an article I read said that the top 10% of income earners (>$350k-ish) pay nearly 75% of income taxes.

  The people really getting squeezed are actually those making between 250K and a million because they for the most part make a good deal of their money through salary, and a taxed at the top line percent.
  
  Most of the people making over a million a year in this country make a good bit of their money through some sort of dividend/investment income in which they only pay a 15% tax rate instead of 35%.
• Mr. 300

  

  LJ, the king at News Agency Taas.
• LJ

  

  Mr. 300 wrote: LJ, the king at News Agency Taas.

  huh?
• Mr. 300

  

  oooops, that's News Agency Tass.
  
  My bad.
• LJ

  

  Mr. 300 wrote: oooops, that's News Agency Tass.
  
  My bad.

  I don't understand why you are saying I am the king of the Russian news agency? PM me if you have a problem.
• goosebumps

  

  The fair tax takes care of all these problems... its too perfect and just to actually put into action though
• ManO'War

  

  Where are the people who were arguing wiith me a few months ago saying it was impossible to get back more than you put in??
• cbus4life

  ManO'War wrote: Where are the people who were arguing wiith me a few months ago saying it was impossible to get back more than you put in??

  I'm here.
  
  And i admit i was wrong.
  
  Just seemed so odd that i didn't think it could possibly be true!!
  
  My apologies.
• fan_from_texas

  IggyPride00 wrote: The people really getting squeezed are actually those making between 250K and a million because they for the most part make a good deal of their money through salary, and a taxed at the top line percent.
  
  Most of the people making over a million a year in this country make a good bit of their money through some sort of dividend/investment income in which they only pay a 15% tax rate instead of 35%.

  This is a good point. I'd go even further and say that people in the $150k-250k range are the ones who really get bilked--they're hitting AMT and losing all sorts of deductions, and are generally taxed at a higher actual tax rate than the Bill Gates of the world (for the reason you mentioned above).
• Footwedge

  fan_from_texas wrote:

  IggyPride00 wrote: The people really getting squeezed are actually those making between 250K and a million because they for the most part make a good deal of their money through salary, and a taxed at the top line percent.
  
  Most of the people making over a million a year in this country make a good bit of their money through some sort of dividend/investment income in which they only pay a 15% tax rate instead of 35%.

  This is a good point. I'd go even further and say that people in the $150k-250k range are the ones who really get bilked--they're hitting AMT and losing all sorts of deductions, and are generally taxed at a higher actual tax rate than the Bill Gates of the world (for the reason you mentioned above).

  Interesting post. Several months ago I posted the exact point that Iggy presented, and about 10 posters here told me I was full of shit.
• fan_from_texas

  Am I no longer on your ignore list?
  
  I don't recall the conversation you mention, nor do I know if I was involved in it. There is a difference, I think, between making an observation (paying marginal rates upwards of 50% on incomes in the 200k range is more burdensome than Buffet paying 15% of his income) and making a normative statement (ergo, tax rates should be raised on Buffet). I tend to agree with the former and disagree with the latter, though I don't have particularly strong feelings on the latter. It seems that taxing investment income at a lower rate encourages investment, which is probably good for the health of our economy, even if it means that some investors end up not paying a ton in taxes.
• Footwedge

  I don't remember if you were involved or not either. But I discussed this on one more than one occasion. And there were at least 10 posters, mainly the hard core right wingers, that wanted to argue the point.
  
  As for this post...I hear what you're saying, but i don't agree with it. People who make between 200K and 1 million should have the same investment ability (by keeping the same percentage of income) as the Buffets of the world.
  
  The point that Iggy made, the point that I made....there is a point where income tax becomes unfairly regressive.
  
  As for you being on ignore, you're still there. The board gives you an option of reading the ignored poster if I decide to click it on.
• jmog

  I'm not sure why you have FFT on ignore, he's one of the most well educated and well spoken posters on the board.
  
  Anyway, I don't think you had any right wingers arguing that those in the 150-1 mil brackets weren't taxed at a higher % than the millionaires of the country. You might find right wingers disagreeing with your solution of taxing the millionaires more to make up that difference.
• Footwedge

  jmog wrote: I'm not sure why you have FFT on ignore, he's one of the most well educated and well spoken posters on the board.

  I agree that he is one of the most intelligent posters here. I made the claim that lawyers that specialize in certain specialized fields are much more knowedgable in their specific areas of expertise....as opposed to young lawyers that have an overall legal education. He took offense to that and lit into me like a Christmas tree.
  
  As an example, General Practitioners know a great deal about how the human heart operates. But cardiologists have a much broader and expansive knowledge base in analizing heart disease.
  

  Anyway, I don't think you had any right wingers arguing that those in the 150-1 mil brackets weren't taxed at a higher % than the millionaires of the country. You might find right wingers disagreeing with your solution of taxing the millionaires more to make up that difference.

  Yes, all of the naysayers were right wingers. All of them. I made several references to the Warren Buffets of the world making 99.9% of their income through stock options and other similar enumerations.
  
  Manhatten Buckeye, for one, argued against me for weeks on this subject both here and on the other forum. But according to him, I am nuts.
• jmog

  The solution to that is make sure the 150k+ is taxed "less", but that will never happen with libs in office .
• general94

  Footwedge wrote:

  fan_from_texas wrote:

  IggyPride00 wrote: The people really getting squeezed are actually those making between 250K and a million because they for the most part make a good deal of their money through salary, and a taxed at the top line percent.
  
  Most of the people making over a million a year in this country make a good bit of their money through some sort of dividend/investment income in which they only pay a 15% tax rate instead of 35%.

  This is a good point. I'd go even further and say that people in the $150k-250k range are the ones who really get bilked--they're hitting AMT and losing all sorts of deductions, and are generally taxed at a higher actual tax rate than the Bill Gates of the world (for the reason you mentioned above).

  Interesting post. Several months ago I posted the exact point that Iggy presented, and about 10 posters here told me I was full of shit.

  I am probably one of those "right wingers" you are referring to. You will get no argument from me that this income group is the one that gets screwed the most. And like I said in some of my previous posts, this is the income group that many of the small business owners in this country fall in.
  
  If I recall coreectly, you were one of the posters telling ManO'War that he was full of shit for giving a first hand example of what this article talks about.
• Footwedge

  general94 wrote:

  Footwedge wrote:

  fan_from_texas wrote:

  IggyPride00 wrote: The people really getting squeezed are actually those making between 250K and a million because they for the most part make a good deal of their money through salary, and a taxed at the top line percent.
  
  Most of the people making over a million a year in this country make a good bit of their money through some sort of dividend/investment income in which they only pay a 15% tax rate instead of 35%.

  This is a good point. I'd go even further and say that people in the $150k-250k range are the ones who really get bilked--they're hitting AMT and losing all sorts of deductions, and are generally taxed at a higher actual tax rate than the Bill Gates of the world (for the reason you mentioned above).

  Interesting post. Several months ago I posted the exact point that Iggy presented, and about 10 posters here told me I was full of shit.

  I am probably one of those "right wingers" you are referring to. You will get no argument from me that this income group is the one that gets screwed the most. And like I said in some of my previous posts, this is the income group that many of the small business owners in this country fall in.
  
  If I recall coreectly, you were one of the posters telling ManO'War that he was full of shit for giving a first hand example of what this article talks about.

  I don't recall telling ManOWar that he was full of it
  
  But in hindsite...he was full of it.
  
  I looked it up and pointed out the the maximum refund for welfare moms was around 5K...not the ludicrous amount he posted....somewhere around 9K.
  
  Manhatten Buckeye said that he "personally" saw a refund check for 6K. Well, according to official government website on EITC, that was a obviously load of crap as well..
  
  But that wasn't even the issue I was referencing. I was talking about the horribly regressive tax benefits for those that make in the millions per year, versus those that pay in the 35% tax bracket. That's where the "keep all my money crowd" went ballistic.
• jmog

  Footwedge, you do know that EITC is NOT the only tax credit right? Credits add on top of each other.
• Footwedge

  jmog wrote: Footwedge, you do know that EITC is NOT the only tax credit right? Credits add on top of each other.

  Yup....but that is not what ManoWar nor MB were claiming in their posts. They were referencing EITC. The discussion developed into the possible inclusions of other credits.
  
  But only in the rarest of rare cases will a minimum wager be able to do an itemized deduction form (schedule A), and receive those type of tax refunds. I'm not an accountant, but most of these are tax deductions, and do not fall under the umbrella of tax credits or tax kickbacks..
• LJ

  

  If you make 40,000 and claim 4 you have $2,383 withheld throughout the year. When filing your taxes you can get all of that and the EITC bringing your total refund check to $8,040.
• Footwedge

  If you make 40k, then you don't qualify for EITC.
• LJ

  

  Footwedge wrote: If you make 40k, then you don't qualify for EITC.

  
  
  http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=150513,00.html
  
  Earned Income and adjusted gross income (AGI) must each be less than:
  
  *
  $43,279 ($48,279 married filing jointly) with three or more qualifying children
  *
  $40,295 ($45,295 married filing jointly) with two qualifying children
  *
  $35,463 ($40,463 married filing jointly) with one qualifying child
  *
  $13,440 ($18,440 married filing jointly) with no qualifying children