February 1964..Beatles at Ed Sullivan Theatre (tax rate chart )

[SoCalDem]

Joke Scarborough was waxing nostalgic about those good ole days..and how horrible the tax hike is going to be....read it and weep, Joey...and y'know what? things were pretty good back then

kids could afford college without many (any?) loans, people could afford cars, vacations, houses, doctors, dentists..and we were still the envy of the world.

[KittyWampus]

1. I love you for doing this. But you knew I loved you anyway.

:)

I'd don't watch that crap.

[Captain Hilts]

2. PAYROLL taxes are much higher. Over 85% pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Could you provide a source for your statement, please?

[Captain Hilts]

8. Here are a couple

http://www.urban.org/publications/1001065.html

The Center for Tax Justice is devoted to this issue.

www.ctj.org


Payroll Taxes Hit Most Americans Harder than Income Taxes

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/22340.html

In the rush to file their federal income tax forms for tax year 2006, Americans may not look closely enough at their W-2s and may not realize the true economic incidence of payroll taxes; they may not realize that they probably paid more in federal payroll taxes than in federal income taxes last year. Most economists agree that virtually all of the payroll tax burden is borne by workers, even that portion that is legally paid by the employer. And so when we count that as a tax on the worker, we begin to realize that this 15.3 percent tax rate can be higher than the income tax rate that these individuals are paying; most of them lie below the Social Security cap ($97,500) and fall in the 10 and 15 percent taxable income brackets (with possibly some income being taxed at the 25 percent rate). Only for high-income earners or those who earn most of their income in non-wage form will their income tax burden exceed their payroll tax burden.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. OK, you meant the tax rate. And that payroll taxes are at a higher rate than income taxes for a

large number of people.

[anigbrowl]

12. Try looking at the graph in the OP, which includes...payroll taxes.

[sinkingfeeling]

15. Which shows the top income tax rate to be 35% and the top 'payroll taxes' to be 15.3%???

[anigbrowl]

16. You seemed just to asking for information about the rate of change in payroll taxes

[slampoet]

3. Who the hell only pays 15% in payroll tax? i have been paying 18-19% for 20 years!!

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Most people equate 'payroll taxes' to just SS and Medicare which is set at 15.3% for self-employed

or 7.65% for employee and 7.65% for employer. If you see 18 to 19%, then you must be seeing additional taxes from your state.
http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/colafacts.htm

[defendandprotect]

13. Social Security has been raising HUGE SURPLUSSES for decades . . .

moving the tax burden onto the poor and middle class because there is
a ceiling -- I think something just over $100,000 -- on FICA.

The original idea was supposedly to cover the baby boom but the surplus every
year now is over $250 BILLION AND CONSTANTLY BORROWED.
Bush used SS money to pay for his wars and for tax cuts for the rich.

Meanwhile, if all the money borrowed from Social Security were repaid, Social
Security would be infinitely solvent.

And we should also note in regard to taxes and the welfare of our cities, states,
and nationhood that when we are losing jobs as we have been due to trade agreement --
and 50,000 of our factories have closed in the last ten years -- that we are also
losing tax payers into all of our programs, from unemployment insurance to FICA and
general taxes. CA being one example of this.

Unless we restore the taxes on the wealthy -- I'd suggest to 1950's levels --
we are headed for the GOP's "third world America."

[defendandprotect]

11. Corporations for decades have been paying 8% and less . . . large corps . .

[Occam Bandage]

5. That's one for you, nineteen for me. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

6. I keep asking people where the hell they were in the 1970's, when I paid over twice the

percentage of income tax as I do now. Back then I pulled in about 1/4 of the income I have today, but paid almost twice the percentage in taxes.

[Captain Hilts]

10. The tax burden has shifted to the payroll tax, which has gone up while income taxes

have held steadier.

Income tax is progressive and payroll taxes regressive.

[defendandprotect]

14. The dollar feels like it's worth only 1/2 of what it was when Bush "won" --

[surrealAmerican]

17. That graph really does say it all.

It amazes me that republicans never notice the connection between those tax rates and the prosperity they claim to want.

[hfojvt]

18. since you mentioned college

As near as I can tell from these reports
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-559.pdf

In 1963 only 17.3% of high school graduates went to college. That was up from 13.4% in 1958. In 2006, an astounding 66% of high school graduates went to college.

Makes me think, that yes there have been cuts to higher education funding that have lead to tuition increases in the last two decades. But there has also apparently been a big increase on the demand side. College may also have seemed more affordable in the 1960s because it was mostly rich kids who were going.

[SoCalDem]

19. I was poor, and because of my grades got a full-ride scholarship

only ONE person I knew at the time, was on a Mommy-Daddy scholarship. Most had work-study, athletic or academic scholarships.

Back then , many jobs did not require college, so many kids probably did not feel the need for it..and girls got married right out of high school..times have changed, but I'm not so sure it's for the better, when kids graduate with $50K of debt, into jobs that pay $30K or less IF they can even find a job:(

[hfojvt]

20. was that because of grades or because of grades and poverty?

I had awesome grades and decent SAT and ACT, but most schools didn't even want to talk about academic scholarships. It was all 'need based', 'need based', 'need based'. If I had been as good at basketball as I was at science would I have gotten a scholarship? Maybe not. I only got a 34 out of 36 on the ACT in science. Maybe the basketball players who got scholarships were the equivalent of 36 out of 36 scores. I think I could have gotten an ROTC scholarship, but that comes with strings attached.

Anyway, we rarely talked about how college was paid for, so I cannot say anecdotally, how people were paying for college in 1981.

I am not sure how many jobs require college now. Certainly none of those that I have had required it and I know of at least two cases where a job that did require it was given to somebody who didn't have a degree. I think graduation rates are less than 70% for college so that's still less than half of students who will get a college degree.

[SoCalDem]

21. Truthfully, I never really even "applied".. My high school guidance counselor

had me sign some applications, and she sent them off, and then we laid out the letters on the kitchen table, and I chose the place with the best deal (University of kansas) and which also was where most of my best buds were going..
Of course '68 was a different time and place..

free room & board
free books
and a $900 a semester cash grant.

and you know what else? I don;t even KNOW what my SAT scores were :rofl:.

we just went to the HS cafeteria on a Saturday, took the test, and then headed for the lake. (we had our suits on under our clothes..Oh, to be young and carefree again:)

[Wednesdays]

22. The Good Old Days

"people could afford cars, vacations, houses, doctors, dentists..."

And all that, on ONE income per family!

Both of my grandfathers were ordinary shmo's working the line for the auto industry, ca. 1930s-1960s. One retired with company stock worth 1/4 million dollars (accumulated as a bonus), and even before he retired he took my grandmother (who never had to work a job) on month-long vacations to Hawaii and Mexico. My other grandfather owned two cars (one was a flashy convertible) and a sailboat. Oh, and he, too, took a month off to vacation with grandma (a part-time dentist's assistant) and us kids at his second house by the lake. They paid their kids' way through college, and even helped out with their grandkids' education.

How times have changed. If they lived today, my grandparents wouldn't even be considered worthy of minimum-wage positions at Wal-Mart.

[SoCalDem]

23. Sounds like most families back then

My best friend's family sent all three daughters to college.. Connie graduated HS in 66, Sue, in 67, and Linda in 68.. They had THREE kids in college at the same time...for FIVE YEARS straight.. they also owned a house (very small by today's standards, but nice for its time), they had THREE cars ...a Buick station wagon, a pick up truck, a fullsized Olds & a Belair.

Dad worked at a foundry (he was a HS dropout) and parttime at the bowling alley..Mom worked a few afternoons a week at the Sears candy counter..

All three daughters graduated without a cent of college debt..two teachers & a nurse

[Art_from_Ark]

24. Well, one couldn't support all of that on one teacher's salary

in Arkansas, in 1964.

[TahitiNut]

25. Here're the top rates going back to 1916.