CBO STUDY: Middle Class (Not the Rich or the Poor) Pay Majority of Federal Taxes
Middle-class Americans--not the rich or the poor--pay the majority of annual tax revenues taken in by the federal government, according to data released in a new Congressional Budget Office study. Households earning less than $34,300 per year, meanwhile, actually pay a negative average federal income tax rate.
Middle-class households that earned between $34,300 and $141,900 paid 50.5 percent of all federal tax revenues in 2007 (the most recent year analyzed), according to the CBO study released Thursday, and households that earned between $34,300 and $352,900 paid 66.7 percent of all federal taxes.
Households in the top 1 percent for annual income (those earning more than $352,900) paid a healthy 28.1 percent of all federal taxes, but households in the lower income brackets paid relatively little. Those earning less than $34,300 paid only 5.2 percent of all federal taxes, and those earning less than $20,500 carried almost none of the federal tax burden (just 0.8 percent of the total) in 2007.
The average overall federal tax rate (including income, Social Security, Medicare, excise and other taxes) for all American households was 20.4 percent in 2007. But the average rate rose dramatically as household income rose. Households earning less than $34,300 paid an average overall federal tax rate of 10.6 percent, while households earning more than $74,700 paid an average overall federal tax rate of almost two and half times that much--25.1 percent.
When it comes to the federal income tax alone (as opposed to Social Security, Medicare, excise and other taxes) the lower income brackets actually paid a negative rate, thanks to programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit that paid people a “credit” for income taxes they never paid. The average federal income tax rate for households earning less than $34,300, according to the CBO, was -0.4 percent in 2007, and the average federal income tax rate for households earning less than $20,500 was -6.8 percent.
---
Jun 21, 2010 at 1:02 PM
Reader Comments (25)
Middle Class--Not the Rich or the Poor--Pay Majority of Federal Taxes, Says CBO Data
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65J1NQ20100620
On a late May afternoon last year in southwest Baltimore, a 2-year-old female pit bull terrier was doused in gasoline and set alight. A young city policewoman on her regular patrol of the neighborhood of boarded-up row houses and redbrick housing developments turned her squad car onto the 1600 block of Presbury Street and saw a cloud of black smoke rising from the burning dog. She hopped out, ran past idle onlookers and managed to put out the flames with her sweater. The dog, subsequently named Phoenix, survived for four days with burns over 95 percent of her body, but soon began to succumb to kidney failure and had to be euthanized.
Since they began making follow-up house calls in early May, census takers have encountered vitriol, menace and flashes of violence. They have been shot at with pellet guns and hit by baseball bats. They have been confronted with pickaxes, crossbows and hammers. They've had lawn mowers pushed menacingly toward them and patio tables thrown their way. They have been nibbled by ducks, bitten by pit bulls and chased by packs of snarling dogs.
Some days, being cursed at seems part of the job description.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/19/AR2010061901896_pf.html
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37786852
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 19, 2010; A01
The U.S. government is snapping up Russian-made helicopters to form the core of Afghanistan's fledgling air force, a strategy that is drawing flak from members of Congress who want to force the Afghans to fly American choppers instead.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061805630_pf.html
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
NEW YORK TIMES
06/20/2010
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords.
Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay. In a good week, he sells 20 homes and Fannie sends another 20 listings his way.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/E744C01438F6DB698625774700815937?OpenDocument
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/06/19/obit.manute.bol/index.html?hpt=T1
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/lakers-violence-lapd-releases-raw-video-of-mob-attacking-cab-seeks-publics-help.html
Popole are angry with the gov.Plus the census is getting stupid with the info they want .Last one i got the long form.What a
crock of shit it was like 25 pages they wanted yo know stuff like who stays at your house how much money you make
i pay taxes isnt that enough info.
I filled it out in green crayon and sent it in.LOL they kept sending me more i would whip them in the trash then they called me
and said they would send someone out so i filled one out and answered every question with i do not understand .
the last i heard.
All this unemployment, and now the U.S. taxdollar is helping the Ruskies to allow us to help the Afghan's. This is Amerika after all, not like anyone will need jobs...
It has been spoken publicly for a very long time.
The new America will not be Capitalist in the old sense, nor will it be Socialist. If at the moment the trend is toward Fascism, it will be an American Fascism, embodying the experience, the traditions and the hopes of the great middle-class nation.
E.F. Brown, associate editor, Current History Magazine, July 1933
crock of shit it was like 25 pages they wanted yo know stuff like who stays at your house how much money you make
...............
Here in the Ozarks, they are re-callin up people that sent thier crap in. 2/3 are "Shit Head's" trying to get info out of you to drain yr bank Acc.
The other 1/3 is them bastards, snooping into yr answers and trying to find out if yr lyeing. I was Middle Class, till 2 years ago. Now were "Poor Class".....and dealing with it.
Just ring my Telly, shit heads. We did the 10 questions, and was the truth. Other than phone # left BLANK, Hoping im not next on thier list, but hoping im next...................
OK, My mommy aint home, she is at work, but im left alone. My name is Spot. You want to know what color my poop is, its brown.................Yes I fart sometimes with my poop.
I hear Gomp's can fart better than dAr can, Yup, its a fact. Oh No Sir, my Pee is yellow, not like Zara's, his is green. Ken's is blue, can you imgin that........
No Sir, SIR, I dont eat Craw-Dad's from the lake. I do watch the stars to see if they are going to crash into the clubhaus pool. DB is grilling some meat on his grill, and it dont smell like Horse, it may be turttle, you better check him out.
No sir, I wipe my ass with only Quilt'ed TP, dont want any of that shit.......TP hangin off my a.......hole, like the bear on TV, do ya's.................... My Ass is clean. Do you want to know how many bugs live hear in my haus...................................We got a shit load of bugs........
Oh, Census Worker, I gotta go PISS, 4 times a night. Gomp's said if you dont, yr Pecker will fall off, dont want that to happen, do ya........... Crap No......I need my Pecker, for somethin.......?
Shit, you want to come over to my place..................were gona have a pig-roast, whAre we all eat Pork, and Pork the Chic next to ya.....................Its a realy great time, im sure you know how its done...................
OK...................I'll quit, but im just getting goin here. A teller-marketter, dont stand a chance with Dar. Best I could do was 1 hr. and 12 mins. They cant hang up on you.
Dont get MAD, Have Fun, they called you. Shit, Mommy said Dar's got to go eat. But, neaver miss a chance to have fun. I've dont it many times before, DB is my back up........ "OuT"...........................................
back then it wasn't called supply side trickle down economics, it was called "horse and sparrow". The idea was if you fed a horse some oats (the ruling class), the spillage onto the ground would feed the sparrows (us). This also failed and eventually led to the panic of 1896.
This war against the middle class is far more systemic today with the prevalence of monetary interests that are aligned against the working class with the backing of the internationalist (communist one world government) regime.
Hey Gomp's, here is a histroy lesson in the making, Ha....? I guess read it and Weep. An e-mail sent to me yesterday.
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Overwhelm the system
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT
Barach Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.
Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.
-- Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?
-- Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses help Obama "spread the wealth around."
-- Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.
-- Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America. But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.
-- Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America . The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.
-- Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition.
With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.
Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.
crock of shit it was like 25 pages they wanted yo know stuff like who stays at your house how much money you make"
I read that CONSTITUTIONALLY the U.S. census bureau is ONLY authorized to collect information on HOWMANY PEOPLE live at any given address. That's IT. So when I got my census form the ONLY part I filled out was that part of it. Then I attached a letter citing the relevant consitutionally-based legal argument I was invoking along with my personal comment that they should go FUCK THEMSELVES. I actually used those exact same words. I never heard from them again. Two weeks later I saw census workers visiting homes in my area and not ONE of them came to my door.
Now my question is THIS: why don't OTHER Americans show the same BALLS (because, false modesty aside, THAT'S what *I* exhibited) when it comes to enacting such BASIC acts of defiance?
ANSWER: Because they're BALL-LESS, UNINFORMED SHEEP. And sheep are only good for handing-over their WOOL & providing useful MEAT.
-And pray tell, WTF does THAT childish bullshit accomplish? I mean, BESIDES indicating that they're still getting their 'revolutionary' inspiration from SESAME ST?
"...and answered every question not pertaining to what the census was meant to be with " I do not understand the question", where have you been?"
-I'VE been telling the census bureau to go FUCK itself, while the rest of you were pretending not to understand the questions so that you wouldn't come across as being TOO defiant. What a bunch of cowardly WEASELS.
Whereas if you OPENLY tell them that their questions are unconstitutional and that they can go fuck themselves in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, they hence forward will avoid your house like the fucking PLAGUE and they'll realize how unhappy and openly hostile the population is becoming towards our government.
I'll take the Jahova Wittness back any ol day. They dont like my "Horse Dick-Balls Nockker" very much. & I light my fire place with the paper stories.
You have already lost that bet, what pray tell were you betting? I hope it is good...
Congratulations! You've just won a 3 week all-expenses-paid stay at the F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S Queen Bess Island Resort off the coast of Louisiana. Relax and play in the sun surrounded by dolphins, seagulls and seals. ALL of them dead and covered in oil, of course. Enjoy endless hours of fun as you swing a few golf balls into the gulf waters, merrily watching them bounce off the thick crust of oily glop that covers it. Happy times!
When night falls, throw a lit match into the Gulf waters and experience the sheer joy of roasting marshmellows while standing on the shore.
And the fun doesn't just stop THERE! Once you come back home, you'll find all your savings & pension plans have been converted into Goldman Sachs derivatives and CDO's, for the gift that keeps on giving.
The Constitution does not apply to foreign entities...
For a independently wealthy scamper and run ex- pat, you really care about fake money. It is not one of my primary motivators...