found this Heritage link on drudge. One can complain about heritage but that doesn't change the numbers "Another eye-popping number was the percentage of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, which now accounts for nearly half of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, most of that population receives generous federal benefits. “One of the most worrying trends in the Index is the coinciding growth in the non-taxpaying public,” wrote Heritage authors Bill Beach and Patrick Tyrrell. “The percentage of people who do not pay federal income taxes, and who are not claimed as dependents by someone who does pay them, jumped from 14.8 percent in 1984 to 49.5 percent in 2009. That means 151.7 million Americans paid nothing in 2009. By comparison, 34.8 million tax filers paid no taxes in 1984." The Link What this doesn't report is how many of the 49.5% actually get money back through EITC. and how long can 1/2 support the government? and still the billionaires who begged to be taxed more have not sent one more penny also on Drudge is this RCP Chris Christie quote to Buffet " just write the check and shut up"
Precisely why my far left-wing girlfriend turned into my right-wing wife. (Anthropology degree if you need perspective as to how far left-wing she was.) Anyway, she took a job at HeadStart right out of college and saw parents that didn't work receive - literally - thousands and thousands via income tax returns. These were the same parents that received free healthcare, food stamps, free this, free that, etc... She was also completely frustrated by the bureaucracy of the entire system in which did very little actual work to help the families but put a lot of pressure on the caseworkers when something didn't go well. For example, if a mother was supposed to have a doctor's appointment and skipped it, the caseworkers would often face the brunt of superiors that sat behind a desk and never got out in the field. There have been other reasons as to why she has changed her political views but this one was pretty important and eye-opening.
Obama has said he is going to implement a minimum tax for everyone and remove a lot of the deductions. of course, i think this is campaign bs to get some of the independent vote back. just like every promise he has made, there is always an exception provision when he signs a bill. so, we know he is full of it.
I would be curious about the fraud in the welfare system, I truly wonder how Sheriff Biden is doing combatting fraud in the government. I haven't heard anything from his office on how he was going to root out and uncover and fix the fraud in the Federal government, anybody hear anything lately from the Sheriff? Of was that just for the Stimulus fraud?
Keep in mind the 49.5% figure is for TY 2009. The Making Work Pay Credit ($400 for single filer and $800 for joint filers) was one more refundable credit. In other words, for those single filers who otherwise would pay $400 or less in taxes, they not only paid zero tax, but actually received a refund; even without claiming dependents. How big is the MWP Credit? I don't know, but assuming 100 million filers might be able to claim the full credit, that would be $400 x 100 million or $40 billion. That credit isn't available on this year's 2011 tax return, so there will be somewhat less "stimulus" pumped into the economy this spring....But there are other ways for filers to extract money from the government, though the tax code does not intend for this to happen. 1) Identity Theft has literally EXPLODED the past two years. I know, because that's the area of work I'm now involved with. The number of fraudulent returns filed out of the state of Florida is astronomical. I don't have that number, but believe me, it's totally out of control. We're talking billions of dollars here. (This short article will make you feel good.) 2) The Opportunity Credit. I'm not kidding, there are literally MILLIONS of returns which claimed this $1,000 refundable credit and I guarantee you nobody signed up for a single college class. 3) EIC & Other - If you can come up with one kid, you can easily bag $3,100 here. If you have two, $5,400 is the goal. And the great thing is, you don't even have to work. Simply file a Schedule C (hair braider, exotic dancer, etc.) and claim about $12,000 income. It doesn't matter if you really earned any money or not, you'll probably get away with it. Your SE tax would be about $1,600 or so, but with two kids you get $5,400 in EIC and another $2,000 in additional child tax credit. Don't forget Form 8863 for your fraudulent Education credit. Your refund is $6,800 and you didn't even have a job! How bout that for gaming the system. Many of the returns I see might show a legitimate $4,000 in wages, another $7,000 or $8,000 in questionable Sch C income, and come home with a $6,000 refund. This is how the tax code works for the lower 25-50%. The upper 0.1% of the population legally games the system via impacting tax law. The rest of us basically bend over and take it in the rear. The next part is simply my opinion/editorial. Wages are now so low in this country, the cost of living so high, and the entitlement ethic so intrinsic to the lives of millions, any reform would risk social unrest. I remember just a year ago, food stamps were made unavailable in Dallas for just one week and chaos ensued. You take away the corruption and handouts and you would have millions of uneducated, unemployable citizens (and non-citizens for that matter) burning down the cities. That $5,000 check they expect to receive resulting from their fraudulent return? They think the system owes that to them. Really. They do.
These are the Americans who don’t pay taxes. Who would you like to tax? People who make less than $25,000 a year (including unemployed, elderly, disabled and retired). This is about ¾ of the people. And because of deductions “Nontaxable returns from people with income between $75,000 and $100,000 went from 4,025 in 1996 to 476,624 in 2009 — an increase of almost 12,000%. More than 1,400 millionaires didn't pay income taxes in 2009, either.” A quarter (of the 50%) don't pay taxes because of deductions and not because of being below the poverty line. Sources:The Link As we all know, raising taxes on anyone in those groups would be political suicide because our society cannot stomach any tax increases. So that is why almost half of people don’t pay fed income taxes. Can't raise taxes on the poor. Can't raise taxes on the middle. Can't raise it on rich people either.
I have just enough conservative in me that I get irritated with folks who feel "owed." Maybe their annual tax refund is something we can't afford. Obviously the government spends too much and takes in too little. I don't think all the coming sacrifice should come from just the "poor folks" but they will need to contribute if America is to become fiscally well.
I would like to see this broken down a little further. But it is a big problem. And it certainly has much to do with the % of Americans living under or near the poverty line: www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?pagewanted=all
Pharm Interesting article. Was there a definition of poverty ? did I miss it? We must have safety nets for the truly needy but I am not sure what is called poverty really is.
Let's cut to the chase here......I'm not in the 1% but I stand with them because I know full well I'm well enough off to get screwed over by any tax deal Obama will dream up. Obama is hell bent on taxing me an add'l $1 so he can buy 4 votes at .25 each worth of government goodies for the loser class. F him for thinking he can use my money to help him buy votes. I'm no dummy, that's how I stay out of the loser class, I know he'll be back looking for $2 in short order.
pharm thank you for providing some information on poverty guidleines. I did some more research and learned for example a pregnant woman counts for 2 which makes sense. I also learned the the poverty guidelines are NOT used for giving out TANF ( cash to poor) SSI ( disability) some parts of medicaid section 8 or low incomeETIC state and local assistance It also appears that the income amount used by the FEds who do use the guidleine do NOT include any benefits. this link is detailedThe Link but explains several things it also lists all the programs and i did not know there were so many what incentive do many people have to work harder if they have food( WIC, Food stamps and school breatfasts lucnche and snakcs) housing, medical, phones and in somce states cars? What if they are able bodied but are content to live a life that by standards of other countries is pretty good? Why would they ever want to earn more just to pay taxes?
We CAN, however, cut the crap out of spending. INDEED, that is the answer. Unfortunately, we don't have any representatives in Washington that really want to hear that.
I need to add, we need to protect the Middle East. We have our buddies Saudi Arabia keeping the dollar at the oil standard, so if they were to get pissed and use something else, our currency may fail... Although publically they'll say different, Israel is just a minor consideration for the real people who make the decisions. If there was a magic bullet, someone would have come up with it. However, I still like Ron Paul - even for his "crazy" stuff.