Obama Confused About Taxes...

IRS Data Show Most Millionaires Pay Taxes at Higher Rate Than Middle Class:

President Obama and his advisers are presenting the "Buffett Rule" as the cure for an epidemic of millionaire tax scofflaws, but national statistics show millionaires by and large are paying taxes at a much higher rate than middle-class families.

And their income taxes make up a significant portion of the federal budget pie.

Data compiled by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center show households pulling in more than $1 million pay about 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes. By contrast, households making between $50,000 and $75,000 pay about 15 percent.

The so-called Buffett Rule has become the political centerpiece of the president's deficit-reduction program. Named after Warren Buffett, the provision would ensure people making more than $1 million a year pay taxes at a higher rate than the middle class.

The president proposed the rule after Buffett complained he was paying taxes at a lower rate than his secretary. Democrats said he's not the only one -- according to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's office, 22,000 people who make over $1 million a year pay taxes at a rate of less than 15 percent. According to the IRS, nearly 1,500 households reporting more than $1 million in income paid no federal income taxes in 2009.

That's out of about 236,000 returns for income above $1 million, most of which belong to households paying taxes at a higher rate. And, as would be expected, they contribute a disproportionate share of tax toward federal coffers.

IRS statistics for tax year 2009 show the millionaires -- who make up a fraction of a percent of all taxpayers -- contributed more than 20 percent of total federal income tax revenue. That's about $180 billion in taxes from millionaires, according to number-crunching from the National Taxpayers Union.

The National Taxpayers Union also found that in 2008 the top 1 percent of American taxpayers paid 38 percent of collections for personal federal income tax while they represented 20 percent of all income.

For those wealthy Americans paying taxes at a seemingly low rate, it could be because they earn income overseas or because a large part of annual income is from investments. Though corporate profits are taxed at 35 percent, in the form of capital gains and dividends they are taxed at 15 percent. Senate testimony in May from the Tax Foundation also showed that for taxpayers making more than $200,000 a year, their salary income made up just 20 percent of national salary income. Much more came from business income.

In total, the Obama deficit-reduction package would seek to raise taxes, mostly on high-income households, by $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

About half of that is from letting the Bush tax cuts expire for households making more than $250,000. Other changes would strip tax breaks for oil and gas companies and other benefits.

The White House would not say how much might be raised from the Buffett Rule or how it would be implemented.

But the Buffett Rule quickly became the rallying cry for the president's plan. In an email to supporters sent Monday night, the campaign urged voters to get the president's back on the plan.

"This proposal makes sure millionaires and billionaires share the responsibility for reducing the deficit," the email said. "The other side is already saying it's 'class warfare' -- that's their rhetorical smokescreen for providing millionaires and billionaires special treatment."

But Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels told Fox News the president's proposal appeared to be "purposely divisive."

"As a practical matter, it's a loser," he said, describing the plan as "hair-of-the-dog economics."

"You know people that have had way too much of something they shouldn't and there's always somebody who says have another one, it'll make you feel better -- it just doesn't work any better in this case," Daniels said.

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal said the problem is spending and described the president's proposal as not serious.

"He doesn't get it," Jindal told Fox News.

The president's plan was presented as a proposal to the bipartisan "super committee" trying to find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings by Thanksgiving.

The plan includes more than just tax hikes. It covers $580 billion in cuts to entitlement and other federal programs, including to Medicare and Medicaid. The president also claimed $1.1 trillion in savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- a claim that has been dismissed as a budgetary gimmick in the past. If the war savings are counted alongside interest savings and the cuts Congress enacted in August, the president's plan is worth than $4 trillion over the next decade.

While Republicans slammed the proposal as divisive and unworkable, some Democrats applauded the president for asking the wealthy to pay more while shielding Medicare seniors and other entitlement program beneficiaries from more severe cutbacks.

"With the wealthiest people in this country becoming wealthier and large corporations enjoying huge profits, it is time that we end tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations and have them pay their fair share," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in a statement.

"We call on Congress to immediately pass the president's proposal for job-creating investments, to ask the wealthy to start paying their fair share, to focus on the true causes of our long-term deficits, to reject any cuts to Medicaid or Social Security or Medicare benefits, and to stop scapegoating federal and postal employees and retirees for problems they did not cause," AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said.

Source

 

Instead of helping the economy, Obummer is playing politics, he knows the above.

He is counting that the Republican's won't pass the bill so the Democrats can keep calling them the party of no.

What other chance do they have to stay in power?

 

Fraud at the polls? Black Panthers?

Obama's numbers are in the tank.
His stimulus was a failure.
People are scared of Obamacare.
He has nothing credible on the table.
A majority of Americans align themselves with conservatism.

If he gets re-elected, it would only confirm the brain-dead status of the American Sheeple.

 

Of course not, that only happens in Chicago...

Look at some of the koolaid drinkers on this forum, for them it is still think we are suffering from Regeanomics, and that Clinton stimulated the economy by raising taxes....

 

...and still all Bush's fault.

 

It must suck to be a ********** and have to resort to accounting tricks to defend Paris Hilton.

1. Your source doesn't deal with effective rate, just total percentage of taxes paid. It sort of makes sense that the super wealthy would pay a lot of tax dollars, being super wealth. That says nothing about tax rates.

2. The facts are clear: the top 1% pay a lower effective rate due to capital gains treatment. Your source simply tries to obfuscate that fact with distraction from the key issue: RATE.

Keep flailing. This may help you face reality, painful though it is for a conservative.

http://www.quickanded.com/2010/02/effective-tax-rates-of-the-richest-400-americans.html

 

And a little thing from Forbes to shake your ********** delusions.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetno...of-capital-gains-during-market-meltdown-year/

 

Are these 400 individuals evading taxes?

Can these 400 save our economy and pay down our debt?

Should they hand out their money to the poor?

 

When the top rate was 90% we all had jobs and the economy was good.

Taxes were cut and the economy sucks and too many can't find jobs.

I guess that means we need more tax cuts. That will fix us up.

I notice that those who say we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem never mention the Pentagon or Bush's unfunded medicare tampering.

Those must be cost neutral and only social programs really cost money.

 

During those higher tax time, what was the actual tax rate, considering the changes in deductions?

Can you find an economic analysis that describes the mechanism where higher taxer stimulate the economy? Can you come up with a plausible reason?

If not, just like during the Clinton Presidency, there were other elements of the economy that dominated.

 

Lets take the highest adjusted gross income of $344.8M for 2007, for 400, a total of $137.92B. Lets tax at 39%, $53.79B, they are already paying 15%, so subtract $20.69B, which leaves $33.1B, or about 1% of this years budget.

Lets bump the tax up to the "historic" 70%, the net is $75.9B. Not enough, lets try 100%, $117.2B

Yeah, that will balance the budget.....

Doesn't that rattle your Democratic delusions, just a little bit???

WE HAVE A SPENDING PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!

$20.69B over 400 people, on average they paid $51.7 million each.

 

BINGO.

The market evangelists are totally disingenuous.

 

Amazing -- three irrelevant questions in a row.

Try to focus.

 

Oh dear, that straw man.

Nobody is claiming increasing taxes on the uberwealthy will balance the budget in one year. So shut it.

 

More baseless name calling. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! ROTFL!!!!!!

So it will take what, 100 years?

Be sure to show your math.....

 

After you get done agreeing to nonsense, see if you can answer my question.

 

This guy has done this crap his entire term. He's everything the Libs figured he wasn't...
He was weened on Chicago politics, and an audience that he could say whatever he wanted.

 

This is the focus of your thought processes.

 

The statement we all know is that all men are created equal so why do we not all pay a flat percentage then the truly genius money makers would float to the top and not the inherited want to keep dads millions so I don't have to make my own money children!
Now don't get me wrong I want to leave my kids money just like anyone else but I want them to keep it through smart decisions and wise choices and not because they get tax breaks for being rich! I unlike some feel that even if I leave my family millions they still need to learn to use it wisely and make it grow by wise use and honest decisions!

Something is just not right in this country when the banks can lose your money in bundles and not have someone pay dearly for it and then have the government give them more while folks who have saved all their lives just to
live modestly lose everything because of it and then are ask to bail the same idiots out! There is no one to big to fail and if we had let them fail it would have hurt yes but it would have caused a uproar that would have shook the very direction our society has headed!

 

How many politicians and regulators do you think $5T could buy off? Or just 1% of that, $50B? Do you think the will of the voter matters unless it cooperates like unions or the Tea Party?

A good number of the uber rich are so, because the government kept their competitors at bay, for a price - and that price was staying in power, well below $50B. The best politicians money can buy....

As government got bigger, did poverty go down, or up? Did income equality go down, or up? The size of government is linked, and there is a reason. Government needed to be bigger so they had the power to extort money from the special interests. Where does that money come from - the consumer.

The rich can only steal from the poor by government regulation. Otherwise a competitor would come in and provide the same service for less money, and still make a huge profit. So another competitor comes in willing to make less profit, and so on. Prices fall, service improves - but for government regulation.

You want less income disparity, more jobs, less poverty, back down all but the regulations absolutely necessary to protect the commons (air, water, land). Keep the laws on the books that prevents the majority from scapegoating the minority, but eliminate any that gives minorities special privilege.

Let business people fight amongst themselves, and with global competitors. The government continually proves it's incompetence in business matters.

 

What quote are you referring to?

The only way to get money out of politics is for government to be so small, it doesn't have power to sell.

If there was a succesful example of true Marxism on the planet, I would pay attention to what he has to say. All I see is a lot of suffering a death that follow his followers.

 

How is small government, no government?

What is your solution to get money out of politics?

Actually it is about taxes and Obama.