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Title: 45 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax
Source:
NY Post
URL Source: http://nypost.com/2016/02/24/45-per ... ans-pay-no-federal-income-tax/
Published: Feb 24, 2016
Author: MarketWatch
Post Date: 2016-02-24 19:05:36 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 6313
Comments: 28
Many Americans don’t have to worry about giving Uncle Sam part of their hard-earned cash for their income taxes this year. An estimated 45.3 percent of American households — roughly 77.5 million — will pay no federal individual income tax, according to data for the 2015 tax year from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington-based research group. (Note that this does not necessarily mean they won’t owe their states income tax.) Roughly half pay no federal income tax because they have no taxable income, and the other roughly half get enough tax breaks to erase their tax liability, explains Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. Despite the fact that rich people paying little in the way of income taxes makes plenty of headlines, this is the exception to the rule: The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay a higher effective income tax rate than any other group (around 23 percent, according to a report released by the Tax Policy Center in 2014) — nearly seven times higher than those in the bottom 50 percent. On average, those in the bottom 40 percent of the income spectrum end up getting money from the government. Meanwhile, the richest 20 percent of Americans, by far, pay the most in income taxes, forking over nearly 87 percent of all the income tax collected by Uncle Sam. The top 1 percent of Americans, who have an average income of more than $2.1 million, pay 43.6 percent of all the federal individual income tax in the US; the top 0.1 percent — just 115,000 households, whose average income is more than $9.4 million — pay more than 20 percent of it. When it comes to all federal taxes — individual income, payroll, excise, corporate income and estate taxes — the distributions of who pays what is more spread out. This is partially because nearly everyone pays excise taxes, which include taxes on gasoline, alcohol and cigarettes. 
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#5. To: cranky (#0)
Social Security
What about them? Cui bene for SS and Medicare payments? The top 10%? 25%? How about the bottom 50%? What group gets paid Medicaid benefits?
They're income taxes, moron.
They're income taxes, moron. And they are also income, moron, income that DOES NOT get counted in AGI for those in the bottom 50%. The Top income group pay these taxes as well but if they receive any benefits from SS it is taxed again at the higher marginal tax rate. Be careful who you call a moron when you present like a mindless, ignorant halfwit. And FYI, the same is true when you include SS and medicare taxes, the top 10% pays a grossly disproportionate amount of Federal taxes with respect to AGI and AGI plus SS and medicare benefits. Do the math, if you can.
Plenty of people who pay those income taxes never receive a dime from the programs, liar.
#17. To: Roscoe (#14)
Plenty of people who pay those income taxes never receive a dime from the programs, liar. And plenty do. Many people as young as 62 are collecting SS benefit payments and are still working, as are many people over 66 and 70. No lie. Look it up. Again, the higher income groups also pay SS and medicare taxes, the latter being index and subject to a surcharge beginning at relatively low income level. And what BS is it that the higher income group first pays taxes on their SS tax and then pay taxes again at the higher marginal tax rates on 85% of the SS benefits that they receive. Do the math if you are capable and you will find that the top 10% pays far more income, SS and medicare taxes in proportion of their AGI than the bottom 50%. It's not call a progressive tax system for nothing. But let's cut to the chase, are you advocating that those at the 50% and below AGI pay no taxes at all as in none, zip, nada? And exactly what percentage of the total federal tax burden should the top 10% pay? 50%? 75%? 100%, 200%?
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Medicare
#10. To: Roscoe, cranky (#5)
Social Security Medicare
#12. To: SOSO (#10)
What about them?
#13. To: Roscoe (#12)
What about them?
#14. To: SOSO (#13)
And they are also income
Replies to Comment # 14. And they are also income
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