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Then prove it wrong, the only thing you have said is that it is wrong.
The rule says, "People making more than $1 million a year should not pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay." The article admits: "There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service." This is the only part of the analysis that's relevant to the Buffett rule.
Now, the rest of the analysis -- the irrelevant parts -- is also underwhelming. The analysis in the article uses averages, which have nothing to do with the topic. We aren't talking about average tax rates.
It also uses AGI, which is annual income that is adjusted by the IRS.
It also sets the cutoff at $1 million, which is fine for policy, but when set as an average is too low to show where the tax inequity actually is. The tax inequity is not at not the top 1%, or even the top 0.1%, it is more like the top 0.01%, and with anyone who gets their income from investments.
Quote:
I guess you are better than "fact check"
Damn right. You think journalists know about money?
Last edited by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus; 09-21-2011 at 06:58 AM..
The article is skewed because the focus group includes people with incomes of 1 million a year.
When you increase the income levels to 10 million, to 50 million and up the numbers change.
It is the typical smoke and mirrors used by the corporate owned media to keep the poor and stupid, poor and stupid.
If the poor knew how the monetary system worked, they would know that taxes are not collected to pay government expenditures, they are collected to control spending and inflation.
The rich are getting richer and the working people are getting poorer. That is the only statistic that is relevant to the tax discussion.
Bottom line is the working people are being screwed.
*The biggest loophole is the lower tax rate on capital gains.
*Economic theory suggests that the degree of progressivity should balance the gains from
mitigating economic inequality and risk-sharing against the costs in terms of
disincentives created by higher tax rates. The optimal top tax rate depends on social
norms and the government’s revenue needs.
*Experience and a range of empirical evidence suggests that the rates in effect in the 1990s
would not unduly diminish economic growth. However, a more efficient option would
be to broaden the base (reform or eliminate tax expenditures and eliminate loopholes) to
achieve distributional goals while keeping top rates relatively low.
*Top tax rates are low by historical standards.
*Despite predictions that the economy would collapse in 1993 when tax rates increased, economic growth was quite robust until 2000. And notwithstanding forecasts that the Bush tax cuts would turbocharge the economy, growth was anemic throughout the last decade (even before the Great Recession).
*Inequality in 2007 was at its highest level since the great depression. Before the Great
Recession, both income and wealth inequality had reached the highest levels in almost 80 years
*The middle class has been in a 30-year recession. There is great concern about the tremendous
harm caused by the financial meltdown and ensuing recession, but the middle class in the United
States has experienced almost no income growth for the past 30 years.
*There is an upper bound on productive tax rates—in the sense that higher rates could actually
reduce revenue (an effect made famous by Arthur Laffer and his napkin). A new survey by 11
economists Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez estimated that the revenue-maximizing federal
income tax rate was “conservatively” 48 percent assuming the existing tax base and could be as
high as 76 percent if the tax base were much broader. Evidence from other studies also suggests
that current rates are safely below the unproductive level.
The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Wow! This is evidence of the great, and growing, wealth disparity in our country. There are so many poor, that the net amount of taxes brought in from them doesn't hold a candle of the net amount the extremely wealthy taxes add up to. This speaks for itself.
Wow! This is evidence of the great, and growing, wealth disparity in our country. There are so many poor, that the net amount of taxes brought in from them doesn't hold a candle of the net amount the extremely wealthy taxes add up to. This speaks for itself.
So many poor - yes, record level...under obamanomics.
This country has been following Obamanomics since the 1980's?
Wow.
Under obama, the number of people deemed "poor" is at record levels. Same with Food Stamps.
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