boutons_
10-12-2007, 09:13 AM
October 12, 2007
Tax Cuts Increased Income, but Hardly Equally
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/12/business/1012-biz-TAXweb.gif
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/david_cay_johnston/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
New data shows that after adjusting for inflation, 95 percent of Americans reported smaller incomes to the tax man in 2005 than in 2000.
Despite this, all Americans had more in their pockets as a result of the Bush tax cuts, although the increases ranged from barely perceptible for the bottom half of American earners to thousands of dollars a month for those at the top, Internal Revenue Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/internal_revenue_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) figures show.
For the bottom half of Americans, the average after-tax income in 2005 was $14,526, which was $20 a month more than in 2000. Without the tax cuts, their incomes would have slipped by $234 a year, or around $20 a month.
The next higher 25 percent, who made $30,881 to $62,068, had on average $52 a month more after taxes in 2005. For the next 20 percent above that, the increase ranged from $144 to $274 a month.
The only group to report higher incomes both before and after taxes was the top 5 percent.
After-tax income for the 96th through 99th rungs on the income ladder rose $5,656 on average, or $471 a month. For the top 1 percent, whose incomes averaged more than $1.2 million, after-tax income rose by $64,796, or $5,400 a month, even though their average income rose only $18,000 in the same period. More than 75 percent of taxpayers make less than $5,400 a month.
Analysis of the new income tax data, known as Table 5 (http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=129270,00.html), also shows that while incomes rose markedly in 2005 from 2004, with all taxpayers’ average income up nearly 4 percent in real terms, average pretax income declined slightly for 75 percent of Americans.
Among the top quarter of American earners — those whose average incomes did rise in 2005 compared with the year before — more than half of the gains went to the top 1 percent.
The figures on incomes, both before and after taxes, help explain why so many Americans report feeling economic distress, despite overall economic growth since the Internet bubble burst on Wall Street in 2000 and the 9/11 attacks the next year. Other official data shows that median household income in 2006 rose by a fraction of 1 percent over 2005 only because more people were working and they were working longer hours.
Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the Cato Institute (http://cato.org/), the nation’s leading promoter of libertarian thought, said that even the income gains among the top 1 percent might be illusory because this group gets most of the income from business. He pointed to a report this week in Tax Notes (http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/FE9DCA58402875D7852573680064DA50?OpenDocument) magazine, by Peter Merrill of PricewaterhouseCoopers, that said partnerships and limited liability companies reported 51.5 percent of all business income in 2004, up from 47.3 percent in 2000.
Mr. Edwards said that income from such businesses shows up on the tax returns of individuals, not their companies, and so the rise in reported income at the top may represent a change in how income is reported.
( well, fuck it, personal income is income. These types of businesses pass their income to individuals. Edwards is spining shit )
Gerald T. Prante of the Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/), a research group that favors lower taxes, noted that the incomes of those just below the top 1 percent fell by a larger amount before tax than the two groups just below. He said this might have resulted from less in investment gains and income, a lingering effect of the burst Internet bubble.
Mr. Prante also said that the increase in after-tax income among the bottom half of Americans seemed primarily a result of the increased child credit promoted by Republicans a decade ago and expanded under Mr. Bush.
That credit used to be denied to the poorest parents because it had no value to those who paid no income tax. But now, a portion of the credit is available to the poorest parents.
A table (http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html) posted by the Tax Foundation shows the income tax rates paid by each group. Those rates overstate the actual taxes paid by the poor because the earned income tax credit and other credits available to people who do not pay taxes are excluded, said Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice (http://ctj.org/), a group that maintains that the tax system favors the rich.
The Tax Foundation’s table shows that the lowest 50 percent of American earners paid an average federal income tax rate of 2.98 percent. When all tax credits are taken into account, Mr. McIntyre calculated, the rate drops to a negative 2.27 percent.
Mr. McIntyre said the overall decline in average pretax incomes, and the big gain in after-tax incomes for those at the very top, did not surprise him. He said that was the predictable result “of a policy geared toward a rather small fraction of the population.”
Both Mr. Edwards and Mr. McIntyre noted that the tax cuts that left people with more money in their pockets were financed with government borrowing.
( aka, "there is no free lunch" and "tax cuts don't pay for themselves" )
“Debt is future taxes,” Mr. Edwards said. “Deficit spending on the war and other items will make taxpayers worse off in the future.”
==================
So let's sum up the trasparency of the dubya/dickkhead disastrous rain of terror:
Protect / enrich the super-rich and corps, and fuck over everybody and everything else (esp environment).
Ignore terrorism (concern about terrorism was a Clinton thing, and everything Clinton did was wrong) until way too late (9/11), then botch the war on terra.
Start at bogus war to grab Iraq oil, and fuck that up.
Secret-ize the Exec beyond all requirements and fuck over the Constitution in the name of national security, which is greatly diminished since 2001.
Refuse to govern, aka "willful incompetence"
Tax Cuts Increased Income, but Hardly Equally
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/12/business/1012-biz-TAXweb.gif
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/david_cay_johnston/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
New data shows that after adjusting for inflation, 95 percent of Americans reported smaller incomes to the tax man in 2005 than in 2000.
Despite this, all Americans had more in their pockets as a result of the Bush tax cuts, although the increases ranged from barely perceptible for the bottom half of American earners to thousands of dollars a month for those at the top, Internal Revenue Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/internal_revenue_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) figures show.
For the bottom half of Americans, the average after-tax income in 2005 was $14,526, which was $20 a month more than in 2000. Without the tax cuts, their incomes would have slipped by $234 a year, or around $20 a month.
The next higher 25 percent, who made $30,881 to $62,068, had on average $52 a month more after taxes in 2005. For the next 20 percent above that, the increase ranged from $144 to $274 a month.
The only group to report higher incomes both before and after taxes was the top 5 percent.
After-tax income for the 96th through 99th rungs on the income ladder rose $5,656 on average, or $471 a month. For the top 1 percent, whose incomes averaged more than $1.2 million, after-tax income rose by $64,796, or $5,400 a month, even though their average income rose only $18,000 in the same period. More than 75 percent of taxpayers make less than $5,400 a month.
Analysis of the new income tax data, known as Table 5 (http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=129270,00.html), also shows that while incomes rose markedly in 2005 from 2004, with all taxpayers’ average income up nearly 4 percent in real terms, average pretax income declined slightly for 75 percent of Americans.
Among the top quarter of American earners — those whose average incomes did rise in 2005 compared with the year before — more than half of the gains went to the top 1 percent.
The figures on incomes, both before and after taxes, help explain why so many Americans report feeling economic distress, despite overall economic growth since the Internet bubble burst on Wall Street in 2000 and the 9/11 attacks the next year. Other official data shows that median household income in 2006 rose by a fraction of 1 percent over 2005 only because more people were working and they were working longer hours.
Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the Cato Institute (http://cato.org/), the nation’s leading promoter of libertarian thought, said that even the income gains among the top 1 percent might be illusory because this group gets most of the income from business. He pointed to a report this week in Tax Notes (http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/FE9DCA58402875D7852573680064DA50?OpenDocument) magazine, by Peter Merrill of PricewaterhouseCoopers, that said partnerships and limited liability companies reported 51.5 percent of all business income in 2004, up from 47.3 percent in 2000.
Mr. Edwards said that income from such businesses shows up on the tax returns of individuals, not their companies, and so the rise in reported income at the top may represent a change in how income is reported.
( well, fuck it, personal income is income. These types of businesses pass their income to individuals. Edwards is spining shit )
Gerald T. Prante of the Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/), a research group that favors lower taxes, noted that the incomes of those just below the top 1 percent fell by a larger amount before tax than the two groups just below. He said this might have resulted from less in investment gains and income, a lingering effect of the burst Internet bubble.
Mr. Prante also said that the increase in after-tax income among the bottom half of Americans seemed primarily a result of the increased child credit promoted by Republicans a decade ago and expanded under Mr. Bush.
That credit used to be denied to the poorest parents because it had no value to those who paid no income tax. But now, a portion of the credit is available to the poorest parents.
A table (http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html) posted by the Tax Foundation shows the income tax rates paid by each group. Those rates overstate the actual taxes paid by the poor because the earned income tax credit and other credits available to people who do not pay taxes are excluded, said Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice (http://ctj.org/), a group that maintains that the tax system favors the rich.
The Tax Foundation’s table shows that the lowest 50 percent of American earners paid an average federal income tax rate of 2.98 percent. When all tax credits are taken into account, Mr. McIntyre calculated, the rate drops to a negative 2.27 percent.
Mr. McIntyre said the overall decline in average pretax incomes, and the big gain in after-tax incomes for those at the very top, did not surprise him. He said that was the predictable result “of a policy geared toward a rather small fraction of the population.”
Both Mr. Edwards and Mr. McIntyre noted that the tax cuts that left people with more money in their pockets were financed with government borrowing.
( aka, "there is no free lunch" and "tax cuts don't pay for themselves" )
“Debt is future taxes,” Mr. Edwards said. “Deficit spending on the war and other items will make taxpayers worse off in the future.”
==================
So let's sum up the trasparency of the dubya/dickkhead disastrous rain of terror:
Protect / enrich the super-rich and corps, and fuck over everybody and everything else (esp environment).
Ignore terrorism (concern about terrorism was a Clinton thing, and everything Clinton did was wrong) until way too late (9/11), then botch the war on terra.
Start at bogus war to grab Iraq oil, and fuck that up.
Secret-ize the Exec beyond all requirements and fuck over the Constitution in the name of national security, which is greatly diminished since 2001.
Refuse to govern, aka "willful incompetence"