Great graphic from the NYT about who pays how much in what taxes:
click for ginormous graphic
Source: NYT
Category: Digital Media, Taxes and Policy
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
Something in that graphic is very misleading.
It says that only 7 percent of people (explicitly people, not households, not working age adults) “Don’t work”.
So how is the UE rate over 8%, and the labor force participation rate at the lowest level since 1981?
C’mon, NYT.
~~~
BR: I believe that is of the households that pay no Fed Inc Tax, 7% dont work
I want to know if the Bear traders who made millions selling RMBS that the SEC now knows was built with fraud ever paid taxes on the billions they stole from their own clients
http://www.teribuhl.com/2012/09/18/what-bear-stearns-whistleblowers-told-the-sec-new-details-of-rmbs-fraud-cover-up/
If you look at Total Taxes paid, our system is reasonably progressive and fair, except:
1) Those earning more than $176,000 should pay more, and
2) The tax system is too complicated
Where the median income & poverty is and mapped by state
http://www.census.gov/did/www/saipe/data/statecounty/maps/2010.html
Romney paid a lower income tax rate than the average household making over $452k. It is unlikely that he paid anything close to 5.2% of his income in payroll taxes. It is conceivable, but unlikely that he paid 7.9% in state and local taxes.
Is it possible that he could be a tax deadbeat compared to his peers? Or possibly, they simply admire the fact that he has better tax lawyers than they do and don’t mind picking up his share.
Another thought: it appears he equates paying income tax with that indivdual’s worth to society. So presumably he believes that a trust fund baby who has never held a job and lives off of his parents’ (or grandparents’) investments has a greater value to society than the immigrant hotel maid who is raising a family off of her meager earnings cleaning his hotel room for him.
This chart shows what a big fat misrepresentation of reality Romney’s comments were. If the American people are so ignorant that they fall for his false descriptions of reality, they deserve the misery that is going to be visited upon them.
We Are the 47%!
http://www.ostroyreport.com/2012/09/in-one-short-publiclyreleased-video.html
nice including the other taxes issue
i liked this from don marron a good analyst in spite of being notional R
http://dmarron.com/2011/07/27/why-do-half-of-americans-pay-no-federal-income-tax/
perhaps Romney could talk about the number of US or former US now in bermuda CORPORATIONS that pay no corporate income tax. Or a pittance for PR
I’d be curious to know what percentage of the employees working for the Romney/Bain success stories (i.e. Staples, Sports Authority) fall into the 47%.
At the risk of looking stupid, what are the gray bars under the graphic “How much do non-payers make?” The gray bars suggest they DID pay federal income tax, even though its a break-out segment of non payers. Something there doesn’t compute.
The real concern of this issue has been brushed to the side. It is that there are now an unprecedented number of voting citizens who are taking more out of the system than they are paying for with their taxes. Certainly up to this point in time payroll taxes have not funded Social Security or health care programs, so it can at least be said that anyone who in the past did not pay income tax took out more than they paid in. Furthermore, adjusting for the number of people working, labor force participation rate, etc. is not relevant–it is the number of people who can vote that receive more than they pay.
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” –Alexis de Tocqueville
OK, it looks like they arrived at 7 percent not working by looking at tax data and saying “Of all tax returns with a non-retired head of household, only 7 percent listed zero taxable income”.
With population of 270M, a labor force of 100M, and an average household size of 2.6 I guess that could be valid. The missing 10M or so will be “married filing separately” or something. Adults hiding in their parents basement?
The message the author of the graphic wants to convey with that small part is “most people are earning a living”. But with only 58 percent of the population employed (and a number of those only part time), I don’t like that metric, I’d use BLS household employment data instead.
> With population of 270M, a labor force of 100M, and an average household size of 2.6 I guess that could be valid. The missing 10M or so will be “married filing separately” or something. Adults hiding in their parents basement?
The US population now exceeds 314 million according to Census Bureau estimates. The civilian labor force is 154.6 million based on the August 2012 BLS economic news release. For 2011 there were a little over 121 million households according to the US Census, which does yield the average house size of 2.6.
Funny how no one has yet responded to RiverboatGambler who hit the nail on the head. Here, here.
I wish the NYT graphic showed the negative arrows on all income brackets. The list of tax reduction programs available to higher earners (410k deduction, state income tax, itemized, 2nd and 3rd mortgage etc. etc) is much longer than those available to low earners ( child care tax credit, standard deduction, earned income etc.)
Kind of like in Harry Potter when the obnoxious spoiled kid Dudley Dursley gets 30 great birthday presents, screams for more because he got 31 last year – then complains when Harry Potter gets a tooth pick or a paper clip for his birthday.
I must reject these graphs. They are in conflict with my feelata (feeling data). In particular the feelata that tells me that I am being robbed by the poor is very disturbed by these graphs. Could you please make sure to revise the second graph such that it only show federal income taxes – so I again can rest peacefully in my little feelata world.
@RiverboatGambler – how is that “everyone takes out what they put in” idea supposed to work exactly? Fire truck shows up and only sprays amount of water on your house in proportion to what you have paid?
Frankly, I hope I never need a firetruck at my house, or need foodstamps, or qualify for reduced lunch program, or unemployment insurance. I am happy to pay taxes and “redistribute wealth” to help prop up those in need. Not so happy “redistributing wealth” for bailing out wall street, buying subsidized crop insurance for big food, or giving GE a pass to pay no corporate tax, or paying for that 13th aircraft carrier etc.
I am unclear on the definition of “did not pay income tax”. Everyone who works has the income tax automatically deducted from their paycheck.
When it is claimed that citizens did not pay Federal income tax, does it mean they did not deduct from their paycheck?
Does it mean that on April 15, they did not pay income tax? If they did not pay on April 15, it is because they already paid every time they received their paycheck.
Does it mean that on April 15, they got all the money returned that was automatically deducted? I doubt this is true. If it is, let us know.
I have a feeling the statistics refer to people who did not pay on April 15. They already paid income tax throughout the year, paycheck to paycheck.
@RiverboatGambler
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. ” Elmer T Peterson (The Daily Oklahoman, 1951)
That’s not a de Toqueville quote. It is by Elmer Peterson (a household name?), perhaps quoting an almost equally obscure Scottish professor, from an editorial in 1951. Sorry to be pedantic but the fraudulent appeal to authority is both sad an annoying.
Slightly more on topic, I gather from the Mitt’s personal history that he supported himself and his family in school by selling off stocks that he had inherited rather than getting a job. I wonder if he was paying income tax then?
There are two things missing from that chart:
1) the fact that the payroll taxes aren’t paying for public goods but are buying a stream of future payments, fixed and contingent.
2) the large amount of transfers to the lower half of the income distribution.
Look, one can disagree about policies but intellectual honesty is important. The NYT advocates a progressive tax-and-transfer system. They have the right to do so of course. But then be honest: analyze not just the taxes but the transfers too. This chart is like an income statement that leaves out the revenue line.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville
“The list of tax reduction programs available to higher earners (410k deduction…..”
thats confusing what is “available” with what people can realistically do with less income. If it’s about what people can do, sure, nobody making very little money is going to benefit much from a 401k deferral because they probably can’t afford to make the deferral in the first place, or if they can, its such a small amount that its mostly insignificant to their overall tax liability. Still, if a 401k exists at a company, barring any waiting period restrictions such as “you have to work here for 90 days before you can enroll” the 401k will be offered to all employees, regardless of income level.
So, 401k’s are also “available” to low wage earners, it is not “just” for high earners. McDonalds offers employees 401k’s if I’m not mistaken, as one example.
Might also be good to point out that many people earning a good income can’t even take full advantage of their 401k’s anyway. During the crisis, and even before that, I’ve witnessed many 401k’s become “top-heavy” which means high earners at the top of the income scale in a company offering the qualified plan can’t make the full pre-tax deferral even if they wanted to. It’s not just small companies either, Du Pont has a 401k like that.
to the post
I did find the 4th graphic down interesting, that 2/3′s of those under $15k income voted for the Obama seems to clearly indicate that those voters in the net believe that Dem’s are better for them than Republicans. So, if Romney thought the race was going to be close you’d at least think he would care about making sure he held on to those other 1/3 of votes right?
of course, given the social mood today and the general goings on, the fact that ultra rich private equity guy Mittens was the choice to go against Obama is sort of mind blowing and nearly anyone would go insane trying to make sense of most of these people.
Taking total taxes into account, our tax structure looks a lot flatter than you might think:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/19/heres-why-the-47-percent-argument-is-an-abuse-of-tax-data/
> 2) the large amount of transfers to the lower half of the income distribution.
Such as what? 40% of households in this country have a mean income of $20,222, 20% have a mean income of $11,239 based on 2011 census data. You could levy an additional tax of $500 on every household in this group – a lot for the bottom quintile and certainly for much of the next – and still only generate $24 billion in additional tax revenue. This is simply peanuts relative to our overall budget, less than 3.5% of our spending on defense. I have no idea what large transfers you’re referring to.
You have to go up the income ladder to find the real money.
For what it’s worth, the elephant in the room long-term is the cost of health care, not an entitlement class at the lower end of the income spectrum. The math as has been sliced and diced elsewhere does not support Romney’s bonehead claims. But then again, that’s no surprise since the math behind many of his claims related to taxes and jobs has also not added up.
@frodo1314:
Check your citation.
“BR: I believe that is of the households that pay no Fed Inc Tax, 7% dont work”
There you go with your “Percentages” again! I believe you meant to say 7 percentage points of the forty-eight percent who didn’t work. That would be 14.58 percent of the total ccohort that do not pay Federal Income taxes.
And, of course, because this is the NYT, the persepective which would have been provided by adding a Chart showing the percentage of ALL taxes paid the various Income Groups was omitted.~~~
BR: Wrong. Look at the graphic — its obvious that the three horizontal lines on top are all the same size, and they are showing different aspects of that same 47% percent.
You aren’t merely wrong, you are consistently wrong in the worst sort of biased way, and its tiresome. Henceforth, future comments of your are in the penalty box.
So,
- All households pay more % in taxes then Romney.
- Republicans absolutely DESTROY themselves, the poorest states in the Republican Southern States.
The thing that really irritates me the most is the sheep-like loyalty to the republican party that the southern states have shown in their voting. However, take note, that in the state I live in, Alabama, voting was clearly split along racial lines, with large urban areas such as Jefferson County (Birmingham) voting for Obama and everyone else voting for McCain. It will be a similar story in November.
So, when anyone from this state declares their allegiance to the republican party, I immediately assume racism or religious intolerance in the name of conservatism, as the republican party has never been a friend to the working class south. Us folks in the south are buying what they are selling, which is that Republican=Conservative Christian Values, when it actually represents capitalism and consequently, the ugly side of capitalism which is greed. They also associate the Democrats with Socialism, while many folks in the south are enjoying the lives we live due to Democratic ideals of the past (TVA, Social Security, and The New Deal).
Need to leave the south….