Taxes...where do teabaggers get these numbers??

[absyntheminded]

My teabagging co-worker has repeatedly spewed the following about who pays taxes, and I'm curious as to where he gets these numbers. I've asked for his sources but have yet to hear back from him.

His exact quote is: "The rich are already doing their part. The Top 50% of wage earneras already pay 97% of the taxes in this country. The Bottom 50% of wage earners pay 2% of the taxes in this country. In addition to paying mostly all the taxes in this country, the rich also give billions more to help those in need".
:wtf:

The numbers he's spouting don't seem accurate to me, however I not sure of a good source that breaks down these numbers definitively. Any help from the DU family would be greatly appreciated.

Oh BTW - about a year or so ago, he's the guy that spouted out "White people pay all the taxes in this country!!". In our diverse office thats black, white and hispanic
:wow:

Sadly, another misguided middle class worker, marching lockstep with FOX News and the Rich.

[Richardo]

1. They are rectally derived.

[hobbit709]

6. Beat me to it. LOL

[peekaloo]

16. Thankee!

don't know their assets from a hole in the ground.

:D

[n2doc]

17. Yep, same as everything else they spew n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. Thank you for not disappointing me.

I had a wager with myself before I clicked on the OP that the first response would be something along these lines. :-)

[ceile]

2. Cross post in TX Forum

Sonia S is a wealth of TX information.

[rfranklin]

3. Because the right wingers only consider income tax...

For some reason they don't believe that FICA is a tax. When you include that, their figures are just hogwash.

They also don't like to include that because Ronnie Reagan was responsible for the biggest rtax increase in history.

" In the period since 1968, the study said, "the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was the biggest increase." That was the tax increase signed by Ronald Reagan, rescinding some of the effects of his huge tax cut passed the year before.

That 1982 tax increase only slightly exceeded Clinton's in inflation-adjusted dollars ($37 billion a year vs.. $32 billion) but it was much bigger in relation to the size of the economy. The '82 increase amounted to 0.8% of GDP (average for the first two years) while Clinton's was 0.5%."

http://www.factcheck.org/treasury_tax_expert_to_bush_clintons_increase.html

[pnorman]

24. Thanks for that link!

n/t

[Tippy]

4. K&R...Republicans feel it is their God given right ...Teabaggers know it all

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Check the IRS website

They have the information.

--d!

[slingsam]

7. He gets his "facts" from Sean Hannity

InsHannity....recites that practically every day......and that's how your teabagger friend knows what to think each day.......

Oh, sorry....I overlooked Richardo's response above.......who seemed to say the same thing.....(Hannity being said rectum!!)

[Jim__]

8. The top 50% pay 97% of income taxes - that does not include payroll taxes.

And payroll taxes have been used as income tax since the 1980s. They claim there is no trust fund - that's due to using payroll taxes as income taxes.

Here's a source for the top 50% paying 97% of the income taxes (see Table I)- it's the Tax Foundation - I don't know who they are and I don't know how reliable they are.

[Lasher]

9. The bottom 40% pays no federal income taxes.

Other taxes, particularly regressive payroll taxes, change the overall tax burden distribution. Everybody who receives earned income is subject to payroll taxes. Three out of four US taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. The poorest 40% paid 10.9% of all federal taxes in 2001. When state and local taxes are included, the bottom 40% pays 13.9% of all taxes.

[OHdem10]

10. Yes they do pay the taxes. Remind him they are untwilling to

pay a living wage, therefore the lowest income workers
only pay payroll tax to cover their SS and Medicare.

If we had a more balanced economy where fair wages were
paid; everyone would be contributing to the Income tax
and the top would not be paying such a percentage.

Ask your friend, should the rich pay better salaries or
make up for not doing this by paying more taxes. If he
says neither, we must assume he would be happy with a country
that mirrors Mexico.

[OnionPatch]

22. That's what I tell them, too.

As long as the rich don't pay their employees living wages, and that includes enough for a dignified retirement, enough to access good health care and education and enough so that the employees can contribute to their communities, the rich will be taxed. As long as clean, hard work is not valued, and as long as it's not considered immoral to exploit desperate people for slave labor, the rich will be taxed. The rich have benefited from the status quo, which depends heavily on cheap labor and exploitation of the desperate and powerless. The richer they are, the more they've benefited from cheap labor, whether they purposefully took advantage of it or not.

Also, when did the right discover that the rich are taxed more heavily? This has been the case for centuries but they've only just noticed this? (Why am I not surprised? If any of them paid attention to history, they wouldn't be conservatives.) And what is "conservative" about wanting to jump into a system of non-taxation of the rich, anyway? I ask my friends to name one county in the world who *doesn't* tax the rich more heavily and yet there is widespread prosperity for ALL. They cannot come up with one country. Not one. They have no evidence at all that non-taxation of the rich will benefit everyone. None. All of the evidence is to the contrary.

[niceypoo]

11. He sounds like one of our self loathing Democrats

Getting hard to tell the difference when it comes to Reaganomics.

[sinkingfeeling]

12. So what? If they have 97% of the income, why does paying 97% of the taxes mean anything?

One must look at the % of each individual's income that is paid out in taxes to understand a progressive tax structure. If one makes $50,000 and pays 28% in income taxes and someone else makes $300,000 and pays 36%, which one can afford those taxes plus save and provide for a family the best?

$50,000-$14,000 in taxes, leaves $36,000 to live on.
$300,000-$108,000 in taxes, leaves $192,000 to live on.

[Lasher]

15. The bottom 40% owned less than 1% of wealth in the US at the end of 2001.

The top 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth#In_the_United_States

Wealth and income inequality has gotten worse since then.

[bighart]

13. Takes into account only income taxes.

From the IRS website statistics, if I did the math right, if you make $50 k or more per year as a household, adjusted gross income, you are in the top 50% of wage-earners. This group does in fact pay 92.5% of all treasury receipts from income tax.

[brewens]

14. I had some diversity training a couple years ago. They put us

in groups to play a Jeopardy style game. One of the questions was what group had the most people on welfare, white, black or hispanic? I told my group it was white people and it wasn't even close. Most of my group works at out HQ and I'm out of a remote site, so they don't know me all that well. I was overruled. I don't remember which other option they picked but we lost points.
They also blew the what percent of the US population is gay? I guaranteed them the accepted estimate was 10% but they again didn't believe me. The other one we blew was what percentage of the population is black and what percentage is hispanic. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I knew both were near or under 15%. They thought there were a lot more black and hispanic people.
This is at a very progressive company. We only have a few teabagger types that I know of. One is an openly gay woman. I really like her and have been hoping for a good chance to bring up The Rachel Maddow show. You'd think she'd be a fan. I'm just wondering what she'll say. She says she likes Fox News on her Facebook profile.
I would imagine the people I'm working with are equally misinformed about taxes.

[Bigmack]

21. Dumbshitedness crosses all lines...

race, creed, orientation, section, Party, class.......

[Harry Monroe]

18. They make them up...DUH!!!

[pscot]

20. Teh stoopid

It burns!

[OnionPatch]

23. Tea baggers usually consider themselves Christians, don't they?

Taxing the rich is NOT socialism. In fact, it is advocated by Jesus himself:

Mark 12:41-44:
And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

[jwirr]

25. I wonder if the pre-1920s Germany was this uninformed? This cannot

lead to good things. My stupid grandson who votes democratic was spouting repug talking points about the unemployed. He runs a liquor store and is angry because some of his customers are just a bunch of drunks collecting unemployment and not looking for jobs. I was (am still) so angry I almost refused to set down a the same table as him. I reminded him that I had heard the same shit about myself all the years I had been on welfare so I could take care of my handicapped daughter. He then blew up and started parroting the libertarian stuff about getting rid of all government - I wonder if he has thought about who is going to take care of me, his other grandmother, his parents and my daughter? HIM.

[bighart]

26. I think the way to address this is to aknowledge the facts that they

are using are statistically accurate when ONLY income tax is considered. We all know everyone pays many more taxes than income tax alone.