Maybe I am just playing the same game,but I find stats from "the other side" compelling in some ways - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 25/02/2012 10:37:03 AM
Take my advice on this and don't trust the data from either side, it can be absolutely true and utterly bullshit at the same time. They generally drink their own kool-aid at think tanks. Except for the ones who cheerfully manufacture crap their employers want to hear, which from my own experience is not too rare. And the TPC is not even vaguely non-partisan, unlike conservative Heritage or Libertarian CATO or liberal Center for American Progress who openly proclaim bias, TPC just likes to claim it. Which makes me trust them even less, especially since it's a bald-faced lie, which always makes me distrust the accuracy of someone's subsequent data and analysis for some reason.
You're best off just going with CBO data by household income IMHO. That has limited utility, but it's exactly what it says on the tin. All these various extraction people make, even when factual accurate, are essentially bullshit. Everyone pays taxes and everyone receives benefits, the goddamn road to someone's mansion and the navy that protects their cargo ships from getting hijacked are, in fact, 'benefits', just like a taxpayer funded education or a welfare check or EITC or access to a fair trial before a jury of your peers where a lawyer will be provided and the cops won't torture confessions out of you. These are benefits, they cost money, that money comes from somewhere and we wouldn't have millions of lines of tax code if it was 'easy' to figure out who was paying it. A 20 cent hike to cigarette tax is a regressive tax, more so since poor smoke more, gas tax borders on it, ditto booze and soda, and state lotteries are amongst the worst offenders in terms of percentage of income the poor spend on those relative to the rich. These ultimately have to be considered taxes as they generate revenue for government, and that they are voluntary to one degree or another doesn't really matter if only a quarter of the poor pay them. At least not if one's goal is to not tap the poor for revenue. Taking money from someone you will then send it to is pretty ass-backwards even if you didn't have to employ people to attend to that.
From a conservative perspective, proving "86% of Americans pay payroll or income tax" merely highlights a retarded taxation system... that incidentally is a blatantly wrong comment, as 86% of Americans aren't even all over 18, actually 20% of Americans are under 14... generally very few of those pay taxes. Of course 86% of American *Adults* do not either, what with the 9% actively seeking work, I'd bet more than the remaining 7% fall into the categories of 'gave up' at the moment but then quite a few not seeking work at all because they are kids, retired, stay-at-homes, in jail, etc. There are under 150 Million people working in this country, one presumes that they are the only ones actually paying payroll taxes and probably not all of them and that the other 165 odd million do not, for one reason or another, and those reasons are either totally valid, totally invalid, or marginal depending on the person. These sorts of studies do usually fine print such things to remain technically accurate then someone from whichever party or group they shill for comes by and writes an article or gives an interview omitting the part fine print part and leaving out all the other factors which inconveniently would poke holes in their claim.
For instance a lot of these studies are actually 'by household', and they derive their data from the CBO, who typically just break households up by income with out comparing by size. A 7 person household in the middle quintile for income is probably not doing as well as single person in the quintile below them, but even then one would have to check what subsidies they might be receiving, like EITC, and it is simply damned retarded to just add in EITC when a single college student might be getting grants paying for their room and board and schooling for instance. I've pretty much given up on the idea that there actually is anyway to determine if the taxes are fairly distributed partially because of the complexity and hidden taxes, but mostly because I have yet to figure out exactly what 'fair' actually is, is it a head tax where everyone pays the same? Not really fair if others get more services even if one assume the rich shouldn't pay more. Is it a percentage everyone pays that's the same? The wealthy will pay way more but still have a larger percentage of their income available for beyond subsistence, a higher rate by income? A flat tax with deductions for the minimum standard of living? I really have no idea. Heck even dumping debt on the next generation isn't entirely unfair, they are a large percentage of the spending and they are benefiting from all those new technologies developed on a lot of those dollars, via research, investment, or consumption... I'd have no problem if cancer got cured twenty years earlier by running a debt on it. No clue what's actually fair. I am pretty sure that effectively massaged numbers are a piss-poor way of determining that though... </rant>
Short version: Most of the people quoting data at you on this subject are telling you absolute garbage that they firmly believe is true and quite often is true, but it's still garbage.
You're best off just going with CBO data by household income IMHO. That has limited utility, but it's exactly what it says on the tin. All these various extraction people make, even when factual accurate, are essentially bullshit. Everyone pays taxes and everyone receives benefits, the goddamn road to someone's mansion and the navy that protects their cargo ships from getting hijacked are, in fact, 'benefits', just like a taxpayer funded education or a welfare check or EITC or access to a fair trial before a jury of your peers where a lawyer will be provided and the cops won't torture confessions out of you. These are benefits, they cost money, that money comes from somewhere and we wouldn't have millions of lines of tax code if it was 'easy' to figure out who was paying it. A 20 cent hike to cigarette tax is a regressive tax, more so since poor smoke more, gas tax borders on it, ditto booze and soda, and state lotteries are amongst the worst offenders in terms of percentage of income the poor spend on those relative to the rich. These ultimately have to be considered taxes as they generate revenue for government, and that they are voluntary to one degree or another doesn't really matter if only a quarter of the poor pay them. At least not if one's goal is to not tap the poor for revenue. Taking money from someone you will then send it to is pretty ass-backwards even if you didn't have to employ people to attend to that.
From a conservative perspective, proving "86% of Americans pay payroll or income tax" merely highlights a retarded taxation system... that incidentally is a blatantly wrong comment, as 86% of Americans aren't even all over 18, actually 20% of Americans are under 14... generally very few of those pay taxes. Of course 86% of American *Adults* do not either, what with the 9% actively seeking work, I'd bet more than the remaining 7% fall into the categories of 'gave up' at the moment but then quite a few not seeking work at all because they are kids, retired, stay-at-homes, in jail, etc. There are under 150 Million people working in this country, one presumes that they are the only ones actually paying payroll taxes and probably not all of them and that the other 165 odd million do not, for one reason or another, and those reasons are either totally valid, totally invalid, or marginal depending on the person. These sorts of studies do usually fine print such things to remain technically accurate then someone from whichever party or group they shill for comes by and writes an article or gives an interview omitting the part fine print part and leaving out all the other factors which inconveniently would poke holes in their claim.
For instance a lot of these studies are actually 'by household', and they derive their data from the CBO, who typically just break households up by income with out comparing by size. A 7 person household in the middle quintile for income is probably not doing as well as single person in the quintile below them, but even then one would have to check what subsidies they might be receiving, like EITC, and it is simply damned retarded to just add in EITC when a single college student might be getting grants paying for their room and board and schooling for instance. I've pretty much given up on the idea that there actually is anyway to determine if the taxes are fairly distributed partially because of the complexity and hidden taxes, but mostly because I have yet to figure out exactly what 'fair' actually is, is it a head tax where everyone pays the same? Not really fair if others get more services even if one assume the rich shouldn't pay more. Is it a percentage everyone pays that's the same? The wealthy will pay way more but still have a larger percentage of their income available for beyond subsistence, a higher rate by income? A flat tax with deductions for the minimum standard of living? I really have no idea. Heck even dumping debt on the next generation isn't entirely unfair, they are a large percentage of the spending and they are benefiting from all those new technologies developed on a lot of those dollars, via research, investment, or consumption... I'd have no problem if cancer got cured twenty years earlier by running a debt on it. No clue what's actually fair. I am pretty sure that effectively massaged numbers are a piss-poor way of determining that though... </rant>
Short version: Most of the people quoting data at you on this subject are telling you absolute garbage that they firmly believe is true and quite often is true, but it's still garbage.
Interesting pragmatic take on the folly of regressive taxes, btw, though of course the issue diminishes the less one spends on social services.
Revisiting all this today via the National Taxpayers Union only reinforced my long and strongly held feeling the middle class is paying for millionaire tax cuts (presumably because the poor can no longer play that role as they did under Reagan.) The NTU bracket breakdown also has limited utility, since, non-partisan though they may be, their mission statement is openly "tax hostile," and their list seems geared to demonstrate the wealthy pay a disproportionate share of income tax. Interestingly, their numbers for 2009 show the "bottom 50%" paid 2.25% of federal tax revenue, not 0%.
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
What I found more interesting, however, was that the bottom 50% earned <$32,396 in 2009. Granted that number is a couple years out of date, but it kinda puts that $48,000 per capita income in perspective, eh? When the mean income is 50% higher than the median, something is rotten in the States United.
Yet what I found MOST interesting (after some minor reverse engineering) was that, in 2009, those earning:
<$32,396 paid 2.25% of personal income tax revenue,
$32,397-$66,192 paid 10.45% of personal income tax revenue,
$66,193-$112,123 paid 16.83% of personal income tax revenue,
$112,124-$154,642 paid 11.81% of personal income tax revenue,
$154,643-$343,926 paid 21.93% of personal income tax revenue and
>$343,926 paid 36.73% of personal income tax revenue
Those numbers from a decidedly anti-tax group jibe with those presented in the NYT article I posted right after trzaskas thread on Christie (I really had been meaning to post both the articles I put up then, but felt obligated after that:)
Relatively few taxpayers pay an enormous percentage of the total federal income tax, and most of them are people who work for a living and have adjusted gross incomes of $100,000 to $500,000, which is the sweet spot for tax revenue. They account for 20.2 percent of total returns but pay a whopping 44.9 percent of total tax. The average tax rate for this group ranges from 11.9 percent for those with less than $200,000 in adjusted gross income to 19.6 percent for those with $200,000 to $500,000. Above those income levels, the rate rises to close to 25 percent and then declines to 22.6 percent for taxpayers earning more than $10 million.
When two different people coming at an issue from two diametrically opposed directions say essentially the same thing (inadvertently or not,) I tend to think the shared narrative fairly accurate. In this case, the story is that the middle class does not provide a huge amount of tax revenue simply because they are so numerous, else the 20% earning $100,000-$500,000 would not provide 45% of personal income tax revenue, and the 15% earning $66,193-$112,123 would not provide 17%. The moral is: The middle class is getting hosed.
I realize the two surveys cannot be compared apple to apple. NTU claims anyone earning >$112,123 is in the top 10%, while the NYT article claims 20% of returns came from the $100,000-$500,000 range alone. My guess is the NYT counted returns and NTU counted earners, but that is only a guess. But they essentially say the same thing in different ways, with a slightly different focus for opposing agendas. The difference is the anti-tax think tanks numbers paint a portrait of the lower middle class taking it on the chin, while the pro-tax editorial paints one of the upper middle class getting the beating. Put it another way: Those who want more taxes try to convince the wealthiest middle class members they are abused by the super wealthy, while those who want less try to convince the poorest middle class members they are abused by the super poor. Both sides agree the middle class is being badly used though; they just each blame the other.
Who gets it right? Well, it is hard to convincingly suggest the poor pay more; you cannot get blood from the stone (hence the NTU argues all taxes should fall, ignoring the fact that even a bloodless stone can weep.) The NYT says 30 million people (the 20% earning $100,000-$500,000) contribute an average of $33,000 each for a total of ~$1 trillion. The NTU says 13.5 million people (the 9% earning $112,124-$343,926) paid an average of $52,000 for a total of ~$700 billion, and the remaining 1.5 million paid an average of $500,000 each for a total of ~$750 billion. Maybe the upper middle class 20% of the country is paying nearly half the taxes or the wealthiest 1% is paying about the same as the next wealthiest 9%, or some combination. Either way, it is hard to say the wealthiest are paying their share unless the middle class is being overtaxed by about a factor of three.
I know Twains quote about statistics, but it seems like all roads lead to Rome unless we cook the books to a crunchy char.