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The top 1% of the population has 30% of the countries wealth. reply]

These are always interesting stats. Conservatives spin the other way "the top x% of people pay (something greater than x%) of the taxes".

All I want to know is, if the top 1% earns 30% of the income, do they pay 30% of the taxes? I hear they pay more, but I've never seen it broken down that way.

To me, it's not fair unless everyone pays something. Being directly proportional to income seems as fair as anything, and we don't have that system.

Anyone have the stats in that form?


...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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"We don't need you anyway you yellow French frog munchers!"
"We don't need you Krauts either!"
" UN? Loosers!"
"USA, USA, USA"

A short time later....................

"Err....Guys, guys!!.......Err, we gota great oppotunity for you!"

Maybe he thinks everyones as stupid as he is!


:D:ph34r::S:D:S:D:o:P:P[:P:DB|
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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To me, it's not fair unless everyone pays something. Being directly proportional to income seems as fair as anything, and we don't have that system.



i dont think so. there are vast numbers of people in this country busting thier asses day in and day out and still have income below the poverty level. i don't want to argue about why they dont do this or they could have done that, im talking about people who are having trouble deciding whether to pay the light bill or go to the grocery store RIGHT NOW. you want to tax them at the same rate as someone who's money is making money? don't seem right to me.
namaste, motherfucker.

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And that's not their fair share?
:D:D:D:D
I think you did some rounding but that's in the ballpark.



Hmmm...30% of the money, paying 20% of the tax....no, that's not their fair share. If they have 30% of the money, they should pay 30% of the tax. That's fair.

Most corporate CEOs and officers show ZERO earned income (or close to it). They get paid in stock options, etc. So that means, they pay 20% capital gains tax (which you want to elliminate) and NOTHING ELSE. No FICA, etc.

Me, I'm paying 41% of my income in federal taxes. They're paying 20%. You call that fair?

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I thought you said you weren't jealous. Hmmmm....

Keep their working hours sometime and get back to me if you have a problem with a CEO/CFO. I don't think your remarks will be as acrid after doing so.

Having 30% of the wealth doesn't equate to having 30% of the income for any given year. Are you proposing a wealth tax in lieu of an income tax? Absurd.
:)
Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

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Quite easy, actually. One of my college room-mates is a financier so I know quite a few of them. Being an Appalachian farm-boy turned engineer I know a lot of manual laborers too - many of them my relatives.

Your assertion that the financier did no work is utterly incorrect. The research these guys do is enormous and extremely time consuming. I don't know of any that work less than 10 hour days - and 12-14 hour days are common.

The financier more than likely applied himself oh, let's be conservative and say 10 or 20 times moreso than the bricklayer while going through school. No work? Try tackling some of my old room-mate's PDE's or financial optimization mathematics he was doing at graduate school. It's not easy stuff and I've got all the coursework for a PhD in engineering!

No work? Pshaw. That's an absurd statement by any measure.

Your tactic is one the left uses frequently. The rich don't work. They sit in offices all day and make $$. Publicly exhorting a position is an easy method to get cheers from uneducated masses but impossible to defend when placed under scrutiny. I challenge you to try keeping a CEO/CFO's working hours. Try studying an equivalent amount of hours as they do for their CFA certification - or reading an equivalent amount of books. Do that and then call it no work......hehehehe....most people wouldn't last a week.



So your argument is that they DO work, and they do make money from that work, but they shouldn't have to pay taxes on the money they make in this manner because they worked harder in school than someone in the construction sector?

Blues,
Dave
"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

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Anvil - Thanks for reading the question. I said Income, not "has the wealth"

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I'd bet just about everybody busts their butts to earn a living regardless of how much their paycheck is. Just because a person has a hard time of it, doesn't exempt from paying the dues - that's what the standard deductions are intended to cover. 50% of all people know 76% of all this information.

If we didn't play all these tax games, then the loopholes wouldn't be there and the CEO's wouldn't be able to LEGALLY exempt certain incomes. But then maybe everyone would pay something.

I'd love to see a straight tax rate for everyone with the first $XXXXX per person not taxed (even if some would still get off scott free - and likely drive up family size in certain areas). It would still be progressive, but at least it would have some sense to it. And many wouldn't ever have to file a tax return and we wouldn't spend so much on having a big government department to police it.

Strangely, conservatives more often support this position than liberals (who is more beholding to the rich accountants and lawyers?)

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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Or, what about the guy that simply gives his money to a bank? Shouldn't the interest be taxed?

Seems to me that, according to some, if a person had $1,000,000 in the bank paying 4% interest they'd want / expect to get $40,000 tax free income each year.

To me, that's just not fair.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Me, I'm paying 41% of my income in federal taxes. They're paying 20%. You call that fair?
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I don't know what exactly your doing for a living but I seriously doubt you are truly paying 41% of your income to taxes. I do my own taxes through turbo tax but the bottomline in there is a total wages tips and etc and there is a total tax. By the time all my deductions were in place on my best year (which broke 6 figures noticeably), I still only payed in the end about 21%. Somebody earning more money I bet 8 out of ten times is in management which is making a serious percent of their money through stock options like you said before. People making less are definately paying less. Saying that your paying 41% means that either you need a new accountant or your simply mistaken.
If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

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Keep their working hours sometime and get back to me if you have a problem with a CEO/CFO.



You mean work 55+ hours monday to friday plus lots of weekends? I already do. Not to mention late night calls. Besides, what the hell does that have to do with it? They're compensated appropriately for it (as am I). What does that have to do with their share of the tax burden? Because they choose to work long hours to make more money they should pay less taxes? That's absurd.

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You also live in Texas with no state income tax... Take your salery and income and move to a state wher eyou get hit with another 15% state tax sometime..
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I grew up in NJ and have also lived in NY. I don't think any state except maybe California or Taxachussets has a higher state income tax. Anyway there I payed 6-7% to state income tax. But even that was before the deductions. In the end it was more like 3-4 % possibly 4-5%, definately not more.
If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

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Justin is good for 20 beers, you are good for two and I am good for two, so there is a case to begin with ;)



Hey, you're giving Canada a bad rap here, you're going to have to pull more weight than that! ;)
7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez
"I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

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Well, let's see. 35% marginal rate, comes out to 26% average rate. SS and medicaire, comes to another 5.3%. That's 31.3%. You're right, it's only 11% more than what they pay. I was including my state and city taxes which come to 7.3%. For a total of 38.6%. Not quite 41....but not 20% either.

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I don't know what exactly your doing for a living



Well, I must be working at communist party headquarters, eh?

I work at a money management firm that invests 12 billion dollars for our clients who need a 50 million initial deposit. I have a pretty good idea of how much money is made and how much is taxed for large investors.

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Me, I'm paying 41% of my income in federal taxes. They're paying 20%. You call that fair?
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I don't know what exactly your doing for a living but I seriously doubt you are truly paying 41% of your income to taxes.



thats fairly presumptuous. apparently you have not seen the pay stub of a single man with no tax shelters making in excess of $120k. the number stated above is fairly accurate for combined fed and state income tax. it hurts. i hope they bring on the pain again real soon, though[:/]
namaste, motherfucker.

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Well, let's see. 35% marginal rate, comes out to 26% average rate. SS and medicaire, comes to another 5.3%. That's 31.3%. You're right, it's only 11% more than what they pay. I was including my state and city taxes which come to 7.3%. For a total of 38.6%. Not quite 41....but not 20% either.


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What about your standard deduction? Do you own a house? What about deducting the yearly interest you pay? Or the property tax for it or the school tax associated with it or a secondary mortgage you might have on it? What about medical bills? They are deductible too. Not to mention your spouse or children if you have either. These are all extremely basic deductions which should easily get anybody making under 120K paying very easily less than 25% tax. Some people get creative and start businesses that the know will fail so that they can claim losses on there business and typically these people pay close to nothing in income tax. If you or your accountant can not seem to figure any of that out there is a book out there called 101 ways to not pay income tax that may be worth your while.
In anycase the true point is that somebody with a serious but not necessarily outrageously high income (perhaps $250-$350K yearly) such as a plastic surgeon or a doctor with a sucessful practice, they are the ones who are truly getting shafted when it come to paying a high percentage of their income to taxes.
If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

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>I don't know what exactly your doing for a living but I seriously doubt
>you are truly paying 41% of your income to taxes.

I pay close to that, 38% (~30% federal, around 8% CA.)

>Saying that your paying 41% means that either you need a new
>accountant or your simply mistaken.

I simply don't spend much time working on tax dodges. The way I figure it I'm better off getting good at my job than getting good at tax shelters.

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What about your standard deduction? Do you own a house? What about deducting the yearly interest you pay? Or the property tax for it or the school tax associated with it or a secondary mortgage you might have on it? What about medical bills?



I don't use the standard deduction, my city wage tax exceeds that so I itemize, and I included that in my calculation, I don't own a house, I don't have a wife, I don't have kids, and I don't have medical bills.

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which should easily get anybody making under 120K paying very easily less than 25% tax



What about your standard deduction? YES!
Do you own a house? NO
What about deducting the yearly interest you pay? NONE
Or the property tax for it or the school tax associated with it or a secondary mortgage you might have on it? NONE, i have no house.
What about medical bills? NONE
spouse or children NONE

so what you meant to say is that 'anyone who has spouse and dependants, and owns a house with one or mortgages, has medical costs in excess of xx%(is some arbitrary percentage of net income), earning under 120K could easily pay less that 25%.

i didnt know that you were so intimately aquainted with phillykevs financials in order to conclude how how plausible his statement of taxation is, but bravo. perhaps you are right, but i doubt it.

and from experience:
it's my fault that i rent, am single with no kids and am reasonably healthy? i didn't have a financial planner, unfortunately. i was just a guy who wanted write code and mind his own business. i took home less than 60% of my salary. and thats another fucked up thing, getting taxed differently due to being on salary.

i dont have a problem with your premise, it has potential, but your execution was deeply flawed. try again, grasshopper.
namaste, motherfucker.

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damn i hate that. take the time to write a longwinded diatribe and 2 muthufuckas beat me under the wire.... but it seems like a pretty solid 3 for 3 sample rate all in the same pickle, eh? anvil, would you like to contribute to our census?
namaste, motherfucker.

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In anycase the true point is that somebody with a serious but not necessarily outrageously high income (perhaps $250-$350K yearly) such as a plastic surgeon or a doctor with a sucessful practice, they are the ones who are truly getting shafted when it come to paying a high percentage of their income to taxes.



You're right. I agree completely. The upper middle class are the ones who get shafted the most. For the most part they are the hardest working, most fiscally responsible, best educated, and contribute the largest portion of their salaries back into the economy. Yet they (we) pay a higher percentage of our income in tax than the really rich.

I'm not jealous, I just have a sore ass.

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If that person is paid for the hours they work - yes, they will be taxed on it.

As far as the taxation of investment income produced as a source of this labor, I do not like that at all.
:)
Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

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