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Originally Posted by JP5
Disagree.
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To be clear: I did not mean to say that payroll taxes mean the poor pay a higher share of their income in taxes than the wealthy. Only that they balance out the income taxes a bit.
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For 2008, SS taxes are 6.2% on earnings up to $102,000. For Medicare taxes, there is NO CAP---so it's 1.45% of ALL earnings. BOTH hit the higher income earners harder as far as dollars they pay in.
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SS is capped at $102,000. By the time you reach $200,000 or so in income, SS taxes are not a significant factor, percentagewise. For the truly wealthy, it's not even a rounding error.
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And don't forget more than 6 million low-income earners pay ZERO in federal income taxes. In fact, because of the Earned Income Tax Credit, many receive money back while paying ZERO in.
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Yep. Never said otherwise.
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By using the word "receive" you act as if they don't work hard for it. As if they don't deserve what they earn. It's NOT given to them; they earn it.
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Again, please note that you have jumped on the *only* time I used the word "receive" in the entire post. Everywhere else I wrote "earned". Stop getting bunged up about word choice and respond to the argument.
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And they should be appreciated for it; not demonized for it.
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Concerns about income inequality aside, who's demonizing them? Remember, I'm responding to a post that implies it's somehow unfair that the wealthy pay more in taxes.
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Care to count the expenses these top income earners have spent on education, investments in their careers, and planning for their futures? It doesn't happen by accident in most cases.
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Good for them. So? How is that relevant?
(Never mind that their education was almost certainly subsidized by taxpayers, either through tax deductions for educational expenses, tax support for public universities, tax deducations for charitable contributions to private school endowments, student loans or grants).
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Why is it Dems insist on mixing in payroll and state taxes during a discussion of federal income taxes?
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Because when discussing tax burden, it's misleading to only talk about the income tax, which is only part of the total federal tax burden.
It would be like taking a look at taxes on luxury goods, noting that they are overwhelmingly paid by the wealthy, and implying that that tax burden is representative of the overall tax burden.
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I've been poor and I've been rich and I did NOT resent the rich when I wasn't one of them.
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Good for you; neither do I. We're talking about tax policy, not "the wealthy are evil."
One does not have to resent the rich to support a mildly progressive tax policy.