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Also, the US federal income tax is a progressive tax which means the more money you earn the more you pay.
By the way, no President in over 100 years has attempted to change this progressive income tax.
Over the last 40 years, the top income earners are capturing nearly all the income gains of this nation, and their share of the nation's income has increased while everyone else is capturing less of the nation's income as their share of the nation's total income has decrease.
If you are rational and logical person, then what happens to who pays income taxes is not some shocking surprise. It is expected.
So with the US having a progressive income tax, there is no way the top income earners won't pay a higher share of the income taxes when they are capturing nearly all the income gains in the nation.
If other Americans captured more of the nation's income, they'd pay a greater share of the income taxes.
In laymen's terms, the disproportionate share of income taxes paid by the top earners is evidence of the growing income inequality that exists in this nation.
Finally, the third and most important aspect is that conservative tax policy is also a huge contributor to this income tax story.
conservatives want lower income taxes on rich people, but when conservatives go to the American people to sell lower taxes, they say lower income taxes for EVERYONE.
This means that every time conservatives lowered the income tax bill of the well to do, they lowered the income tax bill of everyone else, this resulted in fewer people paying federal income taxes, which greatly contributed to the reality we have today.
Well, if you define taxes narrowly enough (just income taxes) and the rich broadly enough (everyone in the US but the bottom 20% from the report)...then the statement can be made. It still doesn't mean it is true, it's just cherry picking what goes along with the OP's agenda.
I say OP's and not the author because the author drills into detail of that number the paragraph later about income versus total taxes.
What's today's number? Watch out, the government is on a never ending quest for money and tomorrow Obama may consider you rich.
OP and CNBC are claiming that people earning $30,000 a year are part of the put-upon, oppressed and overtaxed rich. People shouldn't complain about wage stagnation because they're already rich.
After years of people pointing out that most Americans pay more than JUST INCOME TAXES, it's amazing to see the same clown show propping up more of the same half-truths.
In other news, did you know that the rich pay ALL the taxes that come from passing on estates worth more than $4M to their children? Obviously we need to cut that rate to make it fair...
Good for them. I pay $0 in Federal Income Taxes during the course of the year, then try to exempt as much as possible from how much USA, Inc. says I owe during tax season. I also try to earn money in Cash whenever possible.
I would never want to give a penny more than I legally have to to this Federal Government (even though the Constitution says nothing about income taxes).
This helps to reinforce one of the arguments against the 'red state welfare' myth, as this shows most of the taxes are paid by the rich and the upper classes, who tend to live in big cities in blue states (but are more likely to be Republicans). Of the top ten states with the highest percentage of millionaires, all but Texas are blue.
So with the US having a progressive income tax, there is no way the top income earners won't pay a higher share of the income taxes when they are capturing nearly all the income gains in the nation.
If other Americans captured more of the nation's income, they'd pay a greater share of the income taxes.
In laymen's terms, the disproportionate share of income taxes paid by the top earners is evidence of the growing income inequality that exists in this nation.
Use the right terminology. Since the US uses progressive income tax, there is no way the top income earners won't pay a larger percentage of the income they earn which means the more you earn the higher percentage of your earnings the government takes.
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