Poors: You're welcome. The top 40% paid 106% of income taxes. Bottom 40% paid negative taxes

``Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.

``Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman.

``And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?''

``They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.''

``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.

``Both very busy, sir.''

``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. ``I'm very glad to hear it.''

"What shall I put you down for?''

`Nothing!'' Scrooge replied.

``You wish to be anonymous?''

``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge, ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry." "I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''

``Many can't go there; and many would rather die,'' the man continues.

``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.''

``But you might know it,'' observed the gentleman.

``It's not my business,'' Scrooge returned. ``It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!''

 

It's a quandary. On the one hand, that sounds unfair. On the other hand, there are women in middle class jobs for whom the cost of child care would be such a large portion of their income without the tax credit that financially it makes more sense to not work outside the home. Some of the refundable tax credits actually encourage working outside the home. That is not an encouragement that I want to stop.

 

And the troll show rolls on. Nice job.

 

The title of this thread doesn't entirely match the content of the article. In fact, there's a paragraph in it that says just the opposite.

Beyond that, if you look at the math and how things are calculated, this is basically the result of retirees making up huge parts of the "poors".

 

Seems like "poors" should be thanking the IRS and the Federal prison system. And maybe Texxx could read up on the first half of the last century; every day without a union riot or a socialist coup should be Thanksgiving.

 

There's a paragraph which says the bottom 40% pay 106% and the top 40% pay negative?

 

Are we a nation or are we economic classes?

 

We a borne from the strongest and best organized monarchy in the history of the world; we had to create economic classes to incentivize accumulation of wealth, entrepreneurship and the desired material, administrative and cultural autonomy from John Bull.

 

Maybe eddie winslow is bigtexxx's other account. He usually isn't this overt, but maybe he is forgetting which persona he wants to use.

 

Top 40% also own virtually all of the financial wealth in America.



Hey OP, what should we debate?

 

Income taxes are designed to be progressive like this, so I don't exactly see the point of pointing this out. They are one of the only forces holding rampant inequality at bay. Your last line also makes me think you seem to be confusing income taxes with all taxes.

It's been a oft-cited fact that illegal immigrants pay more into the system then they get out of it through sales and social security taxes.

So I love the attitude some have that "I'm good, I'm a net taxpayer, so I shoulder the nation lololololol". Welcome to the same category as "illegal" immigrants

 

It should also be pointed that the inequality prevalent in the economic system is so bad, that 1 in 4 Americans or little more than half of your "poors" actually have zero or negative net worth, and so charging them any income tax would a terrible mistake---

I wonder how many of those top 1%ers that are really driving the ire of the nation are responsible for this state of affairs. You might be paying your (income) taxes, but if you're destroying households at the bottom doing so, socially speaking, you look like a very big negative.

 

So if the minimum wage was doubled, the poors would pay taxes.....mind blown.

 

I'm glad the OP has brought attention to the poor.

Currently, about 50 million Americans (or, 1 in 6 of us all) live at or below the poverty level. That is beyond embarrassing -- it is completely unacceptable for a nation as great as ours.

 

...in 2010

 

"Poors?" Really??

How arrogant.

 

And, of course, even with this, the poor pay a higher percentage of their income in every other tax that exists, but you won't hear texxx talking about that at all...

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/soaking-poor-state-state

Soaking the Poor, State by State
—By Kevin Drum

You have heard, perhaps, that rich people in America are egregiously overtaxed. And the poor? They're the lucky duckies! Why, 47 percent of Americans pay no taxes at all!

(This is not true, of course. Many poor and elderly Americans pay no federal income tax, but they pay plenty of other taxes.)

Still and all, it's true that the federal income tax is indeed progressive. Conservatives are right about that—though it's not as progressive as it used to be, back before top marginal rates were lowered and capital gains taxes were slashed in half. But conservatives are a little less excited to talk about other kinds of taxes. Payroll taxes aren't progressive, for example. In fact, they're actively regressive, with the poor and middle classes paying higher rates than the rich.

And then there are state taxes. Those include state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and fees of various kinds. How progressive are state taxes?

Answer: They aren't. The Corporation for Enterprise Development recently released a scorecard for all 50 states, and it has boatloads of useful information. That includes overall tax rates, where data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that in the median state (Mississippi, as it turns out) the poorest 20 percent pay twice the tax rate of the top 1 percent. In the worst states, the poorest 20 percent pay five to six times the rate of the richest 1 percent. Lucky duckies indeed. There's not one single state with a tax system that's progressive. Check the table below to see how your state scores.

 

I like turtles.

 

No - there's a paragraph that says the bottom 40% pay positive taxes as opposed to negative taxes.