Don't be stupid is right. Note right there in that article you posted that they are only talking about FEDERAL taxes, nothing about sales tax, property tax, or any of the other regressive taxes out there. Get your head out of the elephant's ass.
In the altenate universe of Fox and libertarianism these folks go to work and get paid, but they are not in "real jobs". A meat inspector,for instance, is not working at a "real job" and though he may keep lots of people from getting too sick to go to their "real jobs" such as construction workers of private houses he does not contribute to the economy in any way since it is the government paying him. If he worked for the meat company than he would actually have a "real job". You see?
The argument is only about income taxes. Not anything else. Don't cite the Buffet secretary example for increasing only income taxes when the data shows otherwise. This might work for a position of revamping the entire tax code and making it more progressive, but that doesn't seem to be the current debate.
How about instead of raising existing tax rates on people we just close all of the absurd loophols. You'd get a siilar result wouldn't you? FACT CHECK: Are rich taxed less than secretaries? http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-rich-taxed-less-secretaries-070642868.html
They skip over certain income brackets of the population. That alone makes me question their biases. They also say "according to data", but what data? Any citation, name of the analysis, link? Don't now give me 8 different links that all cite the same thing, because I did that they this was an AP that was the same release in multiple different papers. Sorry, but don't trust it.
All you have to do is look at SS. You're only taxed on the first $106,800 which up until last year was 6.2% now 4.2%. Prime example of how the middle class and lower income pay more. In addition to raising the top rates the SS cap needs to be removed post haste.
That sentence makes me wonder....what is the proportion of millionaires' consumption as a proportion of total consumption of the United States? Will it even be possible to find out this stat? since consumption is recorded as the price of the good, rather than the person buying it. And what's the savings rate of rich people?
Glad is just upset that all those big numbers are too hard to understand. It's typical for people of lower intelligence to grow wary and angry when presented with facts that are too hard to comprehend. To say that someone who pays $8 in sales tax on a $100 item is spending more of their money relative to someone who earns 10 times as much paying the same $8 on the same item is reason to tax the guy who earns more with higher income taxes is the most laughable thing I've heard. Glad needs to take his meds and realize that he isn't always going to keep getting his handouts.
that benefits the middle and lower class, it doesn't hurt them. The ultra wealthy who are paying SS on that first 100k won't be getting all of that money back when it comes time to collect because they will have too much money to qualify. So where does that go? It goes to the less wealthy. The concept of SS is that you get back what you put into it, it's the middle and lower class who get it back, and sometimes a lot more than they put in. It's the top percentage that are getting suckered by paying even 4.2% on their first 100,000, when they won't be seeing some if not all of it when it's their turn to retire.
I thought this discussion was centered on those earning $1 million a year through their income, so it would be pretty difficult to directly inherit $1 million job.
Depending on how they define their terms and group their data, most stats I've seen say that between 10 and 20% of millionaires inherit their wealth. It depends on how much of their wealth (10%/15%/20%) they inherited, whether it was from trust funds, death in the family, property, and so forth. Also, many stats include many somehat highpaying ($100-200k) professionals who manage money well and have homes they have had for 15+ years. So while they are millionaires in their net worth, they are not what most people would define as truly "wealthy". (As in they are rich, not wealthy)
I would say trust is a form of inheritance, and not just the wealthy uses them, plenty of middle class family do as well.
No, the argument is about taxes. Republicans WANT it to be only about income taxes, but that is because they have to cherry pick their arguments and statistics in order to appeal to anyone. Get back to me when you want to discuss taxation because focusing on one out of the myriad of different taxes is stupid.
They are actually very easy to understand. I'm sorry it is difficult for you to keep up, but don't project your shortcomings on me. Says the person presenting opinions, not facts. I'm well over the income level that pays income tax, but nice try. People in the lower income brackets spend more of their income than those in the higher brackets, they HAVE to because they just don't have the kind of discretionary income as people who make more. As such, the sales tax they pay is a FAR higher percentage of their income than the sales tax paid by someone making $1 million a year. This effect is even more pronounced with payroll taxes since they are capped at $106,000. The VAST majority of people in this country pay the same payroll tax rate, but my father pays less than 2% of his income in payroll tax because of his income. Again, when you look at ALL taxes, most of which are regressive as illustrated in the previous paragraph, it is easy to see that what Warren Buffett said was absolutely true: the very rich pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the secretary, policeman, or firefighter. I'm sorry that the facts cause cognitive dissonance for you, but there is a simple solution: stop watching Fox "News," they are lying to you (disclaimer: I don't watch Fox, MSNBC, or CNN because television is for entertainment, true news comes in written form).
Get back to me when Obama is talking about making consumption taxes progressive instead of trying to tax income more which is already progressive.
To be fair, the owner is paying the other 7.65%. I think it is an excessive burden on the majority of self-employed people. I have a client that is single, self-employed, no children, does not own a home, and makes around $120,000/year. The federal tax code absolutely rapes her.
The income tax has been made less progressive over the course of the last 30 years than it has been since the nineteen-teens. As a result, we are dealing with structural deficits close to a trillion dollars a year and a debt of ~$14 trillion. This is happening because the rich are greedy and don't want to pay their fair share. I would be all for a consumption tax, here is what I would do.
