When they say the top 1% pay....does that include businesses?

napi21

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Fri May-02-08 02:14 PM
Original message

When they say the top 1% pay....does that include businesses?

I received an email from Factcheck and the first item was this:

Q: What percent of taxes does the top 1 percent pay and what percent of the income do they make?
A: The top 1 percent of all households got 18 percent of all personal income and paid nearly 28 percent of all federal taxes in 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The top 1 percent now pay a significantly larger share of taxes than before President Bush's tax cuts, and also have a larger share of income.

I hear this a lot, but nobody ever says if they're referring to the top 1% of individual taxpayers, or the top 1% source of revenue income. There's a difference! If it doesn't include businesses, I'd like to see what businesses pay as a % of tax revenue. You hear a lot of statements about businesses being taxed at 30%, but I can guarantee you, few if any pay that much!

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Warpy

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Fri May-02-08 02:17 PM
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1. They conveniently limit it to income taxes, only

If they added all other Federal taxes including the 40% of OASDI that gets robbed and put into the general fund, you'd see some more honest figures about exactly who pays what.

Until they do that, they're just lying with statistics.

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mrreowwr_kittty

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Fri May-02-08 02:24 PM
Response to Reply #1

3. They also leave out wealth and capital gains.

Many very wealthy people have set things up so they make very little in "income" compared to what they actually have.

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TahitiNut

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Fri May-02-08 02:26 PM
Response to Reply #1

4. They also use "gross adjusted income" ... which is another way of lying.

Edited on Fri May-02-08 02:28 PM by TahitiNut

There's a GINORMOUS amount of moolah in "adjusted." The IRS way of calculation (deceit) is complicit in fudging the facts.

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sandnsea

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Fri May-02-08 02:24 PM
Response to Original message

2. It's proof the rich have gotten richer

I mean do we want to take this to its logical conclusion - feudalism. The 1% own everything so they pay all the taxes and shouldn't the peasants just be forever in their debt. :crazy:

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napi21

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Fri May-02-08 02:27 PM
Response to Original message

5. Yep, that's what I thought. It's very true that you can make numbers

prove whatever you want!

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Breeze54

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Fri May-02-08 02:34 PM
Response to Original message

6. Corporations are now considered "persons"; so yes, imho.

How a corporation is a person is beyond me but that's the GOP
Rethug criminals way of doing things these last 8 years....... :grr:

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Breeze54

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Fri May-02-08 02:35 PM
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7. Dupe hiccup!

Edited on Fri May-02-08 02:36 PM by Breeze54

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sinkingfeeling

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Fri May-02-08 02:42 PM
Response to Original message

8. Doesn't include business. However, those numbers don't match with the IRS's.

See Table 1, here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $364,657) earned approximately 21.2 percent of the nation's income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 39.4 percent of all federal income taxes.

I actually dropped from the top 10% in the 1980's and 1990's to the top 25% this century.

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