I received this chart, from The Washington Monthly, in an email this morning. I thought I would pass it along in case you have not seen it.
The media has been obsessing about President Obama's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans—from 35% to 39.6%.
But I was surprised to learn that the tax rate the wealthiest Americans paid on the top portion of their earnings at the end of Ronald Reagan's first term was much higher -- 50%.
Under Richard Nixon it was 70%, and under Dwight Eisenhower it was actually 91%.
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Author of Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach
Posted March 3, 2009 | 05:48 PM (EST)
For Wealthy Tax Cheats, The Moment of Reckoning is Coming
In some of the great houses in Palm Beach and the penthouses of Manhattan's East Side, wealthy Americans are sleeping fitfully, their nights haunted by fear of exposure. In the Bush years, the IRS became so lax in its enforcement that cheating became routine and hidden Swiss bank accounts almost as much a status symbol as private jets.
Why not do it? Everyone else was doing it? You knew you would never be caught, and you were protected by accountants and lawyers to hide your tracks. Your deceit and betrayal of American laws was shrewd strategy. It's grossly unfair that after all these years you might have to take the perp walk. And doing it, you're not going to look as nonplussed as Bernie Madoff did either.
It was so simple. Say you had a women's clothing company importing dresses from China and you were purchasing $1 million in dresses. You had the Chinese manufacturer send you a bill for $2 million. You wired him the money and he immediately wired half into your Swiss account. And say you've got a half billion dollar company and you keep doing this for ten years. Figure it out. Nobody could ever catch you as long as the Swiss kept their accounts secret.
This is big business. A person I know decided to check out her account in Switzerland. She walked into a tiny bank that looked like a 19th century cuckoo clock and took the old elevator upstairs. It opened up to a modern trading floor as big as a city block.
And now in the early days of the Obama administration, the gig may be up and there is stark terror among the knowledgeable. The sheer amounts of money waiting to be discovered are staggering, billions upon billions of dollars. There is so much money out there that once the taxes and penalties are paid, it could have a significant impact on the budget. And it couldn't be happening to a greedier, more selfish lot, most of them faux patriots to the core.
The first moment of truth arrives Monday when Attorney General Eric Holder meets with Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Swiss councilor in charge of police and justice. In the wake of the UBS debacle, the American government is seeking information on 52,000 American customers. The Swiss are willing to give up 250 customers whose tax fraud is most obvious, but not the others.
The Swiss have a special gift in masking their hypocrisy and narrow self-interest in a veneer of morality and principle. The bankers of Zurich are not happy at this seeming attempt to abrogate treaties that allow thieves to hide their funds with impunity.
Faith Whittlesey, a former ambassador to Switzerland, is a brilliant woman and a dear friend of mine from whom I learn even when I disagree. And I've rarely disagreed more with her than I do on this one. I find her stern warnings in The Financial Times Monday hardly enough reason for the American government to back off. She writes that "one of the largest Swiss political parties is agitating for retaliation that would include discontinuing Swiss representation of US interests in countries such as Cuba and Iran, where the US does not have embassies" and warns of "more virulent anti-Americanism."
I don't know about you, but I'm not sitting here quaking. If it comes to it, I'm willing to give up Swiss chocolate. But as an American who pays his taxes, I want these wealthy tax cheats to be found and punished severely including serious prison time for the worst of them.
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I'd like to thank you for posting to our group -Barack Obama's Presidential Appointments, Bills and Policies.
We've made some changes to our home page such as new group links, monthly achieves and more featured articles..
http://obamasupporters.gather.com/
Lloyd
1) The tax base "republican adjustment" administered under Dumbya's guard, for the richest Americans should be un-done immediately, I don't think we should wait 2 years for it to expire of "natural causes."
2) We need, during this era of "everything is broken" to reconfigure all our support systems. Banking. Tax Structures, Medical/Health for Profit, Insurance companies and The Entire Credit Industry, etc.
3) Who told banks that it was okay to charge customers 20-30%+ interest, and yet offer 2.3 to 2.5% interest on savings? Does anyone else see the gap here?
4) Why would we allow insurance companies to NOT cover us for "an act of god." What the hell is that?
And don't tell me you're going to give me a ticket for not wearing a seat belt, when you can't keep child molesters off the streets, and away from elementary school events.
Okay--now I've vented, and I feel much, much better.
(sorry...)
Wilka
My son just called from London and commented on the cleanliness of the city, the well-maintained infrastructure and the excellence of the high-speed train he took to Bath today. Then he said exactly what I was thinking: it's amazing what can be done when you're not afraid of a few taxes. The boy's been raised well. :)
How about the fact that the top rate when Reagan took office was 70% and his economic recovery act of 1981 reduced them to 50%? Does Prima Donna address this fact or was she trying to mislead like a good liberal? Oh and the 1986 tax act decreased the top tax rate from 50% to 28%. So would that escalate Prima Donna to an outright liar by claiming that Obama's tax increase would still keep to rates underneath Reagan's or is she just like most democrats who don't know what they are talking about and just repeat what they are told by their sheppard?
Prima Donna I was talking about the marginal tax rates. Clever to claim that the marginal tax rates after "Reagan's first term" were higher than Obama's planned rates but misleading to leave out what they were when he took office, 70%, and what they were when he left office, 28%. Why was it important not to say what the rates were when he left office? Did that number conflict with the story you are trying to project or are you trying to compare green apples to red apples? Face it Donna, the premise of this post is a road apple.
Jim, I thought we were friends? You always get mad when I say things that you can't refute. I forgive you. Sorry to rain on your misleading parade Donna.......
If it's right for the so-called rich, it should be right for you as well. I'd love to see you paying 70% of your income in taxes.
Does that also take into account the state and local taxes businesses have to pay?
This coming from a woman who wants the rich to pay for her compassion.
Yeah Marilyn, Listening to these pompous arbitrators of fairness that they don't have to pay for is "priceless". (no pun intended!)
Marilyn "And you think it would be right for someone to pay 70 or 91 percent of their earnings in taxes? WHY??????" I've worked my hiney off for 36 years and I've never been above poverty level. And, you know what???? I totally agree with you. There is no reason in any warm place that I should be paying 25% tax while rich folks pay 90% tax. When we pay a percentage, it's fair. Folks who use their smarts or are lucky and make more money are not evil. (Okay, most of them aren't). Yes, some are greedy. But, that's no reason to penalize the others. I wish we would just go to a flat tax with NO loopholes allowed!
Ya think? I was just wondering why it is addressed that Reagan's tax rate was at 50%? You don't see an agenda? If not i have a bridge to nowhere to sell ya.
I remember when the Repubs frightened me with the evil inheritance tax, ran to my tax advisor who told me it would not affect me. But why would the repubs LIE and tell me all my assets would NOT go to my sons in case of my demise?
I like this article by Scott Burns in the Dallas Morning News; it gives a nice breakdown of who pays income taxes. Here are some excerpts, with a link to the full article at the bottom:
"Perhaps we can learn something by examining how much we pay in taxes, who pays them and how our tax payments have changed in the last 20 years or so. We can do this pretty easily, thanks to the Internal Revenue Service."
"Every year it examines all the returns that are filed and analyzes changes in the patterns of tax payments. The latest year for which the data are complete is 2005."
"Today, fewer people pay income taxes. In 1986, Americans filed 103 million federal income tax returns. Of those, 84 million had to pay some taxes. That's 81.5 percent of all returns. By the time Mr. Clinton took office, the percentage of filers paying taxes had declined to 75 percent. During the Bush years, the percentage of filers who paid taxes continued to decline. It fell to only 67.4 percent in 2005."
"While the number of households filing returns rose by 5 million, the number of households actually paying income taxes fell by 6 million. Basically, 11 million lower-income households don't have to pay income taxes that would have had to pay taxes before the Bush tax cuts."
Did you catch that? Eleven million lower-income households that paid taxes before the Bush tax cuts do not pay taxes now? But Bush's tax cuts were only for the wealthy, right?
"Today, the rich pay more, the poor pay less. Bush tax rate cuts notwithstanding, those with high incomes pay at much higher marginal tax rates than those with lower incomes. They also pay much more of the total tax bill, a reality that has escaped Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Only 953,000 taxpayers – about 1 percent of the total who paid taxes – paid at the top 35 percent tax rate in 2005. They paid $315.4 billion in taxes on their $1,094 billion in income."
"In 2000, the top 25 percent of all taxpaying filers paid a whopping 83.6 percent of all income taxes. By 2005, they paid 85.6 percent of all taxes. So in spite of tax rate cuts for the well-off, the share of taxes paid by the well-off has risen."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/sburns/stories/DN-burns_04bus.ART.State.Edition1.4603045.html
AC, checkout the National Taxpayers Union website. Although it confirms your data about the top 25% of taxpayers, it also shows that the top 50% of taxpayers pay 96% to 97% of all taxes. The bottom 50% of earners consistently pay about 3% to 4% of the personal income tax paid. The data goes back to 1999 -- during the Clinton administration (before the Bush tax cuts). You are not going to get blood out of a turnip.
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
Most of the non-payers are "low-income, young, female-headed households, part-time workers, and beneficiaries of the $1,000 per-child tax credit or the Earned Income Credit."
Take a look at the link. It shows how the number of Americans outside the tax system continues to grow. A family earning $40K would pay no taxes after deductions, and child credits.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/542.html
Figures from Grover Norquist's think-tank should be disregarded as propaganda.
"It shows how the number of Americans outside the tax system continues to grow."
Do you think this is a good thing? Are we headed to a society where a small few pay the entire bill for everyone else?
"This ignores the fact of America's obscene economic inequality. The top 1% hold 39.7% of the entire nation's wealth."
Does it not matter that they generated that wealth? Should they not be allowed to keep a fair percentage of what they earned?
There is no guarantee that we will all be equal. We are all created equal, but what we do after that has a lot to do with the individual choices we make and the individual actions we take.
Was it just an emailed thing from the washington monthly, or is it somewhere at the website?
If you wouldn't mind posting the link, I'd sure appreciate it.
Thanks.
"Do you think this is a good thing? Are we headed to a society where a small few pay the entire bill for everyone else? "
No, it's not a good thing. It's just reality. The data from the tax institute shows that the percentage of tax returns with zero tax liability increased from a low of 21% in 1990 to 32.4% in 2004. The data supports your assertion that 11 million low-income households were removed from the tax rolls. It does not change the fact, however, that the bottom 50% of earners consistently only pay about 3% to 4% of the personal income taxes collected. Taking low income earners off the tax roles had very little impact on government revenue.
Equating a high income with generating wealth is misleading. In 1965, the average salary for a CEO of a major U.S. company was 25 times the salary of the average worker. Today, the average CEO’s pay is more than 250 times the average worker’s. Are these CEO any harder working or smarter than their counterparts from forty years ago? As the disparity of wages between workers and CEO's has widened, you have to wonder whether the people at the top are "cashing in" or generating wealth?
Had the lower 50% of earners shared in the economic boom, instead of waiting for the money to "trickle down" you would see more people footing the tax bill. The money flowed in the wrong direction.
"Taking low income earners off the tax roles had very little impact on government revenue."
That's true. But it's also true that taking low income earners off the tax rolls had a positive impact on those low income earners (they were no longer subject to a tax rate that existed before the Bush tax cuts) and it's also true that this very fact refutes the notion that the Bush tax cuts were only for the wealthy.
"Are these CEO any harder working or smarter than their counterparts from forty years ago?"
I don't know. And neither can you. There's no statistical data to quantify how "hard" someone worked. You're talking about a subjective assessment of degree.
And since when is income determined by how "hard" someone works? It is more accurate to say income is determined by education, skills, and contribution to whatever field you work in.
"As the disparity of wages between workers and CEO's has widened, you have to wonder whether the people at the top are 'cashing in' or generating wealth?"
Since their incomes are determined by the board of directors and investors based on the bottom line of the company they oversee, I think it's accurate to say that the wealth generated by the firm dictates their income.
"Had the lower 50% of earners shared in the economic boom...."
What's the solution? Forcibly take money earned by someone and redistribute it someone else? How socialist of you.
That may be true, but the difference doesn't offset decades of stagnant real wages and declining spending power for the vast majority of Americans.
" it's also true that this very fact refutes the notion that the Bush tax cuts were only for the wealthy. "
True in word, but misleading. Bush's policies, tax and otherwise followed the template of supply-side nonsense to the letter. More for corporations and wealthy individuals, economic insecurity for the rest.
"the percentage of the total federal income tax bill paid by the wealthiest Americans went up under George W. Bush."
Of course, because they had more to tax. Pure and simple.
"I think it's accurate to say that the wealth generated by the firm dictates their income."
Please. Are they really making 175 times more money for their companies than in 1965? How does that explain the current Wall Street culture, which paid out ridiculous salaries for taking unsound and in many cases catastrophic risks?
"... refutes the notion that the Bush tax cuts were only for the wealthy. "
No AC, the Bush tax cuts primarily benefited the wealthy. The top ten percent of earners got the lion's share of the savings -- %56. The bottom 50% of earners got 8% of the savings. This was at a time when worker productivity increased by 16% and their median income slid by 2.9% (compared to the 11.3% gain during the Clinton years).
If you use worker productivity as a measure of the value of how "hard" a CEO was working, a 16% increase in salary would seem reasonable. However bearing witness to the executive compensation shenanigans at Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, would lead one to conclude that executive compensation is not performance based.
"What's the solution? Forcibly take money earned by someone and redistribute it someone else? How socialist of you."
The federal income tax has been around since 1913. The government takes your money and spends it as your elected representatives see fit.
When you consider what the tax rate has been in the past, and how the US has prospered over those years, a tax rate of 39.6% (when the Bush tax cut expires) for the wealthiest 2% of Americans does not seem that outrageous.
Year Income Bracket Tax Rate
1955 $44,000-$52,000 59%
1965 $52,000-$64,000 53%
1975 $88,000-$100,000 60%
1985 $169,020 and over 50%
1993 (Clinton) $250,000 and over 39.6%
2003 (Bush) $250,000 and over 35%
Lost in all of this is the fact that people EARN this money. Then in our twisted societal logic, they are not entitled to keep it. The fact that they earned it is irrelevant. It must be taken from them and given to others so that we can all be more equal.
"Are they really making 175 times more money for their companies than in 1965?"
Maybe. Maybe not. You'd have to look at each individual business case before coming to a conclusion about a company in question. But more important is the fact that the investors and boards of directors get to decide what they want to pay their own employees.
"No AC, the Bush tax cuts primarily benefited the wealthy."
That would be because they paid the most in taxes, by far.
"The top ten percent of earners got the lion's share of the savings -- %56."
They also paid the most in taxes.
"The bottom 50% of earners got 8% of the savings."
They also paid the least in taxes.
"If you use worker productivity as a measure of the value of how "hard" a CEO was working...."
How is that a valid measure? There is no way to quantify the relationship between worker productivity (which can be objectively measured) and how "hard" someone in an entirely different position is working (a subjective assessment based on individual perceptions of what constitutes hard work).
"The government takes your money and spends it as your elected representatives see fit."
I know how the process works, but you didn't answer the question.
"...a tax rate of 39.6% (when the Bush tax cut expires) for the wealthiest 2% of Americans does not seem that outrageous."
Again, a subjective assessment. You are of course, entitled to your opinion. Do the people paying the 39.6% rate agree with that opinion? Some undoubtedly do. Some undoubtedly do not.
I ask you again: is it right to have a small group of tax payers foot the bill for the rest of society?
All true - also irrelevant. The point of the rantings by the Bloviatin' Blowhard of EIB and the insanity of Sean Hannity has BEEN that 'marginal' tax rate. If that's what they want to talk about - so be it!
So far as a flat tax is concerned - for folks who make less than $50,000 dollars a year, it's an absolute killer. There's a reason we have a graduated tax. I always thought a 70% or higher tax was just a TAD unfair, but the concept is not.
"That would be because they paid the most in taxes, by far."
AC, you may advocate Social Darwinism, but the majority of economists and citizens support progressive taxation. Even Adam Smith argued its merit. "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."
"There is no way to quantify the relationship between worker productivity ... and how "hard" someone in an entirely different position is working."
Businesses do this all the time. Like it or not, worker productivity was figured by dividing company revenue by the number of employees.
"I ask you again: is it right to have a small group of tax payers foot the bill for the rest of society? "
The majority of Americans pay taxes, not some small group. Most people support progressive tax policy.
But HOW MUCH MORE? That is the question, and the answer is completely subjective depending on who's in office. Is a quarter of someone's income fair game? A third? Half? Three quarters?
And it becomes skewed even more when that small group is bearing the burden of 85% of the total tax bill (for the top 25%).
"Like it or not, worker productivity was figured by dividing company revenue by the number of employees."
But it is impossible to develop a causal relationship between the productivity of one group and how hard another, entirely different group works. Can't be done.
"The majority of Americans pay taxes...."
Barely. 38% of all working Americans pay no income tax at all, and as you have concurred above, the top half of those who actually pay (the 62% who pay) account for 97% of the total tax bill. So yes, it is accurate to say that most Americans pay taxes. But it is also grossly misleading.
It was more than it is now and it will be less than what he charged even when it goes up in 2011.
What this means is that more and more lower income workers are being removed from the rolls entirely (11 million under GWB) and more and more of the total income tax burden is being borne by the wealthiest workers.
"Barely. 38% of all working Americans pay no income tax at all..."
Most Americans pay income taxes and essentially all Americans pay payroll taxes. The 38% figure you are using is disingenuous. It does not take into account the payroll tax that these people are paying. The payroll tax rate is 15.3% for all income earners up to an income ceiling of $102,000. Since this tax does not touch the high income workers, it is a actually regressive tax. Low income earners pay this tax on everything they earn while the wealthy pay it on only a small portion of their income.
While the income tax generates $1.17 trillion, the payroll tax brings in $873.4 billion. Payroll taxes and income taxes go into the same pool of money that funds government.
The argument that only the wealthy foot the bill for society is misleading.
It's not supposed to. It's the percentage of workers paying INCOME tax. The payroll tax is a different tax.
"Since this tax does not touch the high income workers...."
Yes it does, up to $102,000. To say the tax does not touch them is flat out wrong.
"...pay it on only a small portion of their income."
That depends on what their income is, doesn't it? What if their income is $125,000? Those wage earners are in the top 10%.
"Payroll taxes and income taxes go into the same pool of money that funds government."
No they don't. Remember the lock box? LOL!!! Democrats only make a distinction when it is convenient.
"The argument that only the wealthy foot the bill for society is misleading."
How so? If the top 25% of wage earners pay more than 85% of the income tax bill, then it is completely true that a small segment of the population (25%) is paying the bill for virtually the rest of the population.
You missed the point. The majority of Americans pay income tax and virtually all wage earners pay the payroll tax. Essentially all Americans contribute to society through payroll and income taxes.
People fortunate to have earned more disposable income pay a higher percentage of that income in tax than do those with less income -- that's the way progressive tax system works.
The graph at the top of the post shows the tax rates for the top income earners from the past century. Even with the proposed 4.6 percent increase, the income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans is lower that the Reagan era.
I didn't miss the point. What you are glossing over is how the burden is distributed. Only 62% of workers pay income tax. All workers pay payroll tax. For the income tax, the top 25% pay 85% of the burden.
So yes, all Americans contribute, but a select few contribute the VAST majority of the actual dollars paid in taxes.
The other thing you're glossing over is this: While the percentage of individual income paid in taxes by the wealthiest Americans is less than in the past, the percentage of the total income tax bill for the country is higher.
That's the dirty little secret of the Bush tax cuts: the percentage of the total tax bill for the country paid by the wealthiest Americans ACTUALLY WENT UP under Bush, and the percentage of workers who pay NO INCOME TAX AT ALL went up under Bush.
Despite the claim that Bush's tax cuts were for the wealthy, the wealthy actually became responsible for more of the overall national income tax burden under Bush.
Scroll up to where I posted the article from the Dallas Morning News for an excellent piece on the faulty perception about the Bush tax cuts.
If we figure total income from all sources, the top one percent of all incomes will constitute what percent of total income for everyone?
What percent of income taxes does the top percent pay?
If we figure the total tax burden of the top one percent of the population in terms of assets (stock, bonds, real estate, etc) and calculate the percent of all taxes paid then compare that percentage with the percent of total assets owned, what do we get?
Now I don't know the numbers but they should be available on the web but I am too lazy to look them up. But given that the rich have far more influence with Congress and other legislators I am betting that the richest one percent figured in income or in assets do not pay a corresponding proportion of the taxes Americans pay. I would bet that they are able to hide income and shelter assets and such to the point that they pay far less than their share for the protection that the "state" offers their assets and income.
Since the poor have the least influence I am betting that they must pay more than their share.
What liberals have to start having the balls to address is the overall attitude towards taxation promoted by the neo-con forces.
Taxes are not a bad thing. Taxes are not evil.
Taxes are the price of civilization and, as with everything else, you get what you pay for.
Why is the USA in debt up to its neck (and owing much of that money to a totalitarian regime)? Why is the nation's infrastructure crumbling leading to bridge collapses and endangering the lives of commuters across the country? Why do almost 50 million Americans have no health insurance? Why are soldiers returning home after being wounded in combat being warehoused in a run-down rat trap of a hospital? Why are veterans of the Iraq war homeless by the thousands?
The answer to all of these questions is the same: Americans do NOT pay enough in taxes.
If you want a slipshod civilization, one that doesn't pay its own way, one that leaves its future generations saddled with crippling debt, one that lets its public facilities slowly fall into disrepair, one that cannot honour the service of its soldiers properly... then keep on the conservative path that insists on low taxes first, foremost and finally.
If you want to be the world leader that you once were you have to be responsible enough, adult enough, to pay for it with an appropriate level of taxation.
LOWER TAXES ARE MAKING YOU POORER!
Wilber Carp, here is one link, I'll see if I can find the others.
I agree.
"Americans do NOT pay enough in taxes."
That depends on WHICH Americans you are talking about. How about the 38% of workers who pay NO income tax at all?
That has nothing to do with the fact that 38% of American workers pay no taxes, but okay, I'll say both Clinton and Bush should have done something about that.
Still, do two wrongs make a right?
The rest is merely semantics and amounts to a shell game.
What is really revealed by the 38% statistic is how many workers have fallen into the "low wage" category by the decline in worker's incomes while CEOs and other senior executives have been reaping ever increasing windfall salaries and bonuses. This has made the economy top heavy, which is what led to it toppling over last year.
For those saying the rich should pay more, the Bush tax cuts were a good thing then, right?
The wealthiest Americans were getting a much larger share of the total income. They should have been paying even more.
Are you touting the fact that W adminstration produced more poor families.
Bush’s Accomplishments - More Poor and More Poverty!
http://www.mail-archive.com/brc-news@lists.tao.ca/msg00038.html
They were getting a much larger share of the total income because they were EARNING a much larger share of the income. It's an important fact in this discussion.
Rude,
He didn't produce the poor families. They were already poor, and recognizing that fact, Bush adjusted the tax tables so that they wouldn't have to pay income taxes.
Nice try at spin, though.
There have been some rich folks in the news lately who did not get their money by "EARNING" the money but by fraud. There are also lots of CEOs in the news who have run their businesses into bankruptcy and have gotten huge (huge to me) bonuses and salaries and compensation packages. There are also a number of rich people in the news who have inherited their wealth. (Ted Kennedy for one.) I also understand that the top guys in organized crime are pretty rich.
You say that these rich folks earned their money. What did they do to earn it? What did they do that produced benefits for others? More importantly, how do you know what they did to get their money? Are you an insider on their deals? Do you have some pipeline of information denied to the rest of us?
I ask because it seems to me that having wealth and power presents one with great temptations to cheat others. You know the old saying "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Well it seems to me that as one gets more money one has more power and therefore one is more likely to be corrupt. The opportunities for corruption are certainly there for the rich.
"Some" doesn't justify generic policy.
"More importantly, how do you know what they did to get their money?"
Likewise, how do you know? This gets back to my point about "some" doesn't justify generic policy that affects "all."
I told you how I know. They are in the news. Huge swindles of many billions of dollars. Huge corporations giving bonuses with the bailout money after they generated trillions of dollars of debt. That's how I know that there are a large number of rich people cheating, because despite their wealth and power they are getting caught and are in the news. Now if this many are getting caught doesn't it make sense that there are many others who were smarter about their swindles or who are just not in the news?
To me it seems that there is a lot of evidence that the rich that are in the news don't deserve that wealth at all.
Therefore I can't justify having the rich pay less taxes (even Warren Buffet, a multi-billionaire, admits that he pays a lower effective tax rate than most of his employees) than the common man in the street. Why should the sources of income for the rich be taxed at a lower rate (capital gains for example)?
Now are you going to answer any of my questions or just let them lie there and hope they will go away?
I want to puke in an election every time I hear this shining city on the hill richest country in the world ... we are not the richest country in the world by any measure, it is doubtful that we even have a country anymore because a country implies people voluntarily united for social, economic and maybe on some sense spiritual reasons to create benefits for everyone. We have more of a slave state anymore looking and the future trends.
Finally, what I think almost everyone does not get, from most of my conversation with people about taxes on Gather, is what the TOP MARGINAL TAX RATE is!. It is the amount of tax paid on an addition huge amount of money after someone has already made an even huger amount of money, in order to prevent a plutocracy or aristcrats from taking over the country.
Why does someone born rich with a potential for helping the country economically get to play money games and write off his losses if he loses some money, and only pay 15% on his income if he makes money ... while people who have to work, and many of them who have to work at jobs where they have to give up pieces of their health and neglect their families pay 35% tax?
Why not treat all income as the same and tax progressively both income and wages. It is clear that aside from the tax cheating there is nothing innovative being done that creates wealth in America anymore, we are just about accounting tricks and stomping our people down ... and keeping them down by denying them health care and creating virtual prisons of debt to control them.