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Thanks! The field of youtube viewers is lucky to have you, Darrinbot!The field of Meteorology is lucky to be getting you.
Darrinbot at work with the old code now. Disappointing.
The field of Meteorology is lucky to be getting you.
Thanks! The field of youtube viewers is lucky to have you, Darrinbot!The field of Meteorology is lucky to be getting you.
the only way there would ever be such a state of chaos would be if the primary catalyst was a catastrophic event. in the absence of this, i seriously doubt there would ever be any real threat imposed upon the bourgeoise, gates' eccentricities and paranoia notwithstanding.
Surely it is a significant percentage.
Exactly what sort of redistribution are you talking about Manny?
The majority of those people are in that situation by their own doing.
For starters, a progressive tax code that actually stays that way when the taxes are done. I feel as long as the top 2% have 50% of the wealth in this country their fair share is far more than 2%.
That the top 2% hold so much in this country says to me they should foot the bill for a lot more than they do.
Well you can choose to ignore the situation if thats what you believe. Those people will simply get whats coming to them. However, you'd better believe they can drag the rest of the country with them.
You can either be pragmatic or you can wonder why everything went to after the fact.
financial wrecklessness? bad investments? unnecessary spending? what percentage fall under this umbrella as opposed to unemployment, lower wages, injury, health issues, medical costs...?
Lets raise the taxes!! That will help 72% of the people!!
Doesn't that top 2% also foot the bill for something like 40% of all federal income taxes?
You make it sound as if they're not already paying their share. What exactly would you consider fair?
there are a million ways to write off.
We already have a progressive tax code, you dumb .
Almost 50% pay NO income taxes - how about they start kicking in their "fair share"? Everyone should have some skin in the game, and everyone who has income should pay income tax - even if it's only 5%. That way, when the Feds start talking about raising taxes, EVERYONE will be affected. Right now, those that pay no income tax could care less if the Fed raises taxes on those "evil rich people".
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly....html?x=0&.v=1
Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax
Recession, new tax credits have nearly half of US households paying no federal income tax
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.
About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.
Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it's still almost always better to file: That's the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers.
In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.
Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year.
The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.
"We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing," said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
The vast majority of people who escape federal income taxes still pay other taxes, including federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, and excise taxes on gasoline, aviation, alcohol and cigarettes. Many also pay state or local taxes on sales, income and property.
That helps explain the country's aversion to taxes, said Clint Stretch, a tax policy expert Deloitte Tax. He said many people simply look at the difference between their gross pay and their take-home pay and blame the government for the disparity.
"It's not uncommon for people to think that their Social Security taxes, their 401(k) contributions, their share of employer health premiums, all of that stuff in their mind gets lumped into income taxes," Stretch said.
The federal income tax is the government's largest source of revenue, raising more than $900 billion -- or a little less than half of all government receipts -- in the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. But with deductions and credits, especially for families with children, there have long been people who don't pay it, mainly lower-income families.
The number of households that don't pay federal income taxes increased substantially in 2008, when the poor economy reduced incomes and Congress cut taxes in an attempt to help recovery.
In 2007, about 38 percent of households paid no federal income tax, a figure that jumped to 49 percent in 2008, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center.
In 2008, President George W. Bush signed a law providing most families with rebate checks of $300 to $1,200. Last year, Obama signed the economic recovery law that expanded some tax credits and created others. Most targeted low- and middle-income families.
Obama's Making Work Pay credit provides as much as $800 to couples and $400 to individuals. The expanded child tax credit provides $1,000 for each child under 17. The Earned Income Tax Credit provides up to $5,657 to low-income families with at least three children.
There are also tax credits for college expenses, buying a new home and upgrading an existing home with energy-efficient doors, windows, furnaces and other appliances. Many of the credits are refundable, meaning if the credits exceed the amount of income taxes owed, the taxpayer gets a payment from the government for the difference.
"All these things are ways the government says, if you do this, we'll reduce your tax bill by some amount," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
The government could provide the same benefits through spending programs, with the same effect on the federal budget, Williams said. But it sounds better for politicians to say they cut taxes rather than they started a new spending program, he added.
Obama has pushed tax cuts for low- and middle-income families and tax increases for the wealthy, arguing that wealthier taxpayers fared well in the past decade, so it's time to pay up. The nation's wealthiest taxpayers did get big tax breaks under Bush, with the top marginal tax rate reduced from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, and the second-highest rate reduced from 36 percent to 33 percent.
But income tax rates were lowered at every income level. The changes made it relatively easy for families of four making $50,000 to eliminate their income tax liability.
Here's how they did it, according to Deloitte Tax:
The family was en led to a standard deduction of $11,400 and four personal exemptions of $3,650 apiece, leaving a taxable income of $24,000. The federal income tax on $24,000 is $2,769.
With two children younger than 17, the family qualified for two $1,000 child tax credits. Its Making Work Pay credit was $800 because the parents were married filing jointly.
The $2,800 in credits exceeds the $2,769 in taxes, so the family makes a $31 profit from the federal income tax. That ought to take the sting out of April 15.
To be fair, something like the lower 70% of the population of the US holds around 5% of the entire wealth of the country. So, for that nearly 50%, their fair share IS nothing. When you can barely afford rent and food, you certainly can't afford income tax now, can you?
This stat alone says Obongo shouldn't raise taxes. 72 percent of the people live paycheck to paycheck! That's a crazy stat.
They don't pay taxes because they make amounts underneath where the taxing starts. I don't see how that proves anything more than what I've been saying that the current wealth distribution in this country is absolutely horrible, MM.
The top 5% I believe carry about 50% of the tax burden in this country but they also don't pay the rates their "supposed" to because of the obscene amounts of write off and loopholes in our tax code. They are on the hook for much more but they get out of it a good deal of the time (ask CC about his free golf carts or w/e as an example).
This may not be a solution and there may be different ways of fixing this problem out there that will work better, but I do know that having such a large amount of wealth in such a small concentration and having the trend shift further in that direction is definitely a recipe for disaster.
Really? How many people in the top income bracket live paycheck to paycheck jack? Those folks are the only ones who are going to get taxed. You do realize that, don't you?
Stop being so butthurt. "Rich people" should be treated as everyone else. If you don't think so you are a bigot.
Obama doesn't want to raise taxes on anyone except the top 2%. Most Americans have had a tax cut under Obama so saying that he wants to raise taxes on those 72% is a flat out lie.
No, they shouldn't. When they want to take their money out of the political sphere then I'll have more sympathy for them. But the way they flat out buy political representation in this country shows they are NOT like everyone else.
Lets be clear, Rich people in our system are not victims and will never be victims.
Dumbass-This stat alone says Obongo shouldn't raise taxes. 72 percent of the people live paycheck to paycheck! That's a crazy stat.
I think expecting people who are not poor to be responsible for their own financial well being is being pragmatic. If you disagree, fair enough. What do you propose we do about the 72% living paycheck to paycheck?
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