Need Help on Taxing the Rich Question

[WiffenPoof]

I have heard from both Republicans I know and those in Congress that the rich already pay the majority of the income tax collected in this country.

More specifically...it is stated by Republicans that the top 1% of the wealthiest pay approximately 42% of the total income taxes in this country. And...that the top 25% pay approximately 86% of the total income tax taken in.

Is this accurate? How do I respond to this argument?

Thanks for your help.

-WP

[mdmc]

1. i would rather be rich, pay 50% of the total taxes, and pay 90% of my income

then live paycheck to paycheck..

Find a rich person that is willing to "give up" the privilege of paying high taxes. Give up the wealth and live pay check to pay check while paying next to nothing in taxes. No rich person would ever do so. Every poor person would switch places in an instant.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Fed Income Tax Data 2009

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html#table1

Yep - it's the Tax Foundation - even better because it's a Conservative 'Think Tank'. Make THEM work for the answers - you do nothing.

ETA - My fiance and me - when you combine our incomes are in the top 5%. I don't care if that makes us 'bad' at DU. However, I greatly resent paying so much more in taxes each year than another couple who earn a million dollars a year and live in NJ. Even when you take the percentage and place it in real time numbers we pay far more than they do. We (Giovanni and me) do NOT need anymore cuts. As a matter of fact, if it goes to expand medicare/medicaid and infrastructure? Put us up to 40%. But - I'm not PAYING the way of millionaires anymore.

They are getting a free ride and I'm sorry - they don't work as 'hard' as a hotel maid or garbage man (lets use this hypothetical couple) who NEEDS some sort of relief. So give the maid and garbage man a break by taxing us more - but give me a break by taxing the couple earning a million dollars a year more.

[izquierdista]

3. If you don't have income, you can't pay income tax...

However, if you don't have income, you still need to eat.

[FreakinDJ]

4. Pretty disqusting to think $66000 puts you in Top 25%

$66000 doesn't let you buy a house in California and 1/5 (20%) would go to Healthcare right off the top

[rurallib]

5. doesn't the top 1% hold over 50% of the wealth in this country?

so at 42% they are not quite paying their share.
But even at that, I have always felt that those to whom much is given, much should be expected.
None of these people accumulated the money they have strictly on their own. They have used public goods such as highways, regulated electric companies, schools, government contracts, laws that favor them etc., etc. to make their fortune. Time to return some favors.

[WiffenPoof]

6. Excellent Answers...

I feel sort of silly asking the question now.

I particularly support the idea that those who have benefited most from the "American" form of capitalism should return more to the system.

-P

[Scuba]

7. Good response: Is that all? They get almost all the income, they should pay almost all the taxes.

[RWS]

9. Its simple

They have more to protect within the system of government. Just like an insurance company. You pay based on what you are insuring. Without the government they would have nothing. I would probably just take their money (somalia). But the government (laws, police, courts, etc) keep me and others from doing so.. Therefor they should pay more taxes.

Also think on it this way. If you are poor does it really matter what government is doing. You will be a poor serf under any leader either way. This is what much of the peasants thought back in the dark ages.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. It may be close to accurate, but the question is , "'So what"? Look at what percentage of

wealth is 'owned' by that top 1%.

http://www.mybudget360.com/top-1-percent-control-42-percent-of-financial-wealth-in-the-us-how-average-americans-are-lured-into-debt-servitude-by-promises-of-mega-wealth/

According to this: Each year from 2005 to 2007, the top 1 percent's constantly growing share of income earned and taxes paid set a record. The 2008 reversal of this trend continued in 2009. In fact, the income share for the top 1 percent of tax returns was lower in 2009 than in 2000, largely due to differences in capital gains.

Another indicator of this reversal in the income and tax shares of the top 1 percent is that, as in 2008, the top 1 percent no longer pays a larger percentage of total income tax than the bottom 95 percent. This trend was exacerbated by the aforementioned precipitous drop in AGI in 2009. During 2009, the bottom 95 percent (AGI under $154,643) paid 41.3 percent of the total collected, a larger share than the 36.7 percent paid by the top 1 percent (AGI over $343,947).

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

[RegieRocker]

10. It's taxing the rich at the same rate as the poor not "taxing the rich"