Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of U.S. households, and that top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928,

in 2007 the 400 richest Americans earned an average income of 344.8 Mil in 2007, up from 263.3 mil in 2006 (31% increase in wages) and paid an effective tax rate of 16.16%. (25 of them paid 0-10%). If you earned 255,000$ for the year in 2007, you paid an effective rate of 17.52%. The top 400 earned that in the first... 3 hours of 2007.

The bottom 90% of wage earners have seen their average incomes rise 13% (less than half the top 400's in 2007) since 1992. The top 400 wage earners have seen an increase in wages by 399% since 1992.

Most of the top 400's income comes from capital gain (66.3%) and dividends taxed at a maximum rate of 15%.

Congressman Paul Ryan, (R)-Wisconsin, a young GOP star, has proposed tax reform that would make tax rates on dividend and capital gain income, 0%

The IRS report on the stop 400 began yearly under President Bill Clinton and was ceased under President George W. Bush. It was continued under the Obama Administration.

[email=http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2908]Article about top 1% earning most of the economic boom[/email]

[email=http://www.tax.com/taxcom/features.nsf/Articles/0DEC0EAA7E4D7A2B852576CD00714692?OpenDocument]Article about the top 400[/email]

Are you going to post what percentage of income taxes are paid by the top 1% as opposed to the bottom 90%? You realize half of the country doesn't pay any income tax at all, right?

Manhattan Buckeye wrote: Are you going to post what percentage of income taxes are paid by the top 1% as opposed to the bottom 90%? You realize half of the country doesn't pay any income tax at all, right?

40% of Americans pay any amount of federal income tax. If we apply the stats in the article...each of those 400 taxpayers paid 55,719,680$ in federal income tax on average....seems like a lot to us but the median house hold income is 50,233$. With just the money those 400 taxpayers paid in taxes, they could hire 443,778 employees at the median average household income. And of course they wouldn't have to pay any tax on those outlays because they'd be ordinary and necessary business expenses. If they employed spouses that filed jointly...median household income for those folks would double!

But, why would they care about having to avoid tax when they're taxed mere measley 16% of hundreds of millions of dollars?

If they don't want to pay tax...employ people and broaden the base. It would be about 40 billion in tax revenue from those employees before adding in the pay roll taxes...would do so but I have to run.

Making it sound more elementary than reality but you get the point.

Interesting, lets bash the people for being successful.

Especially when the top 10% pay 70% of the taxes in the US.
The bottom 40% pay 0.
The 40-50% bracket pays a total of 3% of the "total".

The top 1% earn about 19% of the income in the US, but pay 37% of the income taxes.

Ah the damn rich. Thats the problem our country faces. Those greedy bastards are making big bucks while the rest of us wallow behind.

Lets take that 344.8 million and multiply it by the 400 top wage earners giving them a total of 137.9 billion in total income. Then take the 55.7 million each paid and multiply that by 400 for a total of 22.3 billion in paid taxes. If Washington took every single dollar they earned the feds would only gain 115.6 billion dollars in tax revenue. This would not even bring the estimated 1.171 trillion dollar 2010 federal budget deficit below a trillion.

Your looking in the wrong place. The greedy bastards are in Washington. This class warfare ruse is about to fall apart when those in lower brackets find out the federal government has hidden their burden when it comes to the feds irresponsible spending. Imagine the anger and suprise when these lower and non taxed find out the federal government needs their money too.

majorspark wrote: Ah the damn rich. Thats the problem our country faces. Those greedy bastards are making big bucks while the rest of us wallow behind.

Lets take that 344.8 million and multiply it by the 400 top wage earners giving them a total of 137.9 billion in total income. Then take the 55.7 million each paid and multiply that by 400 for a total of 22.3 billion in paid taxes. If Washington took every single dollar they earned the feds would only gain 115.6 billion dollars in tax revenue. This would not even bring the estimated 1.171 trillion dollar 2010 federal budget deficit below a trillion.

Your looking in the wrong place. The greedy bastards are in Washington. This class warfare ruse is about to fall apart when those in lower brackets find out the federal government has hidden their burden when it comes to the feds irresponsible spending. Imagine the anger and suprise when these lower and non taxed find out the federal government needs their money too.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

majorspark wrote: Ah the damn rich. Thats the problem our country faces. Those greedy bastards are making big bucks while the rest of us wallow behind.

Lets take that 344.8 million and multiply it by the 400 top wage earners giving them a total of 137.9 billion in total income. Then take the 55.7 million each paid and multiply that by 400 for a total of 22.3 billion in paid taxes. If Washington took every single dollar they earned the feds would only gain 115.6 billion dollars in tax revenue. This would not even bring the estimated 1.171 trillion dollar 2010 federal budget deficit below a trillion.

Your looking in the wrong place. The greedy bastards are in Washington. This class warfare ruse is about to fall apart when those in lower brackets find out the federal government has hidden their burden when it comes to the feds irresponsible spending. Imagine the anger and suprise when these lower and non taxed find out the federal government needs their money too.

Class dismissed.

jmog wrote: Interesting, lets bash the people for being successful.

Especially when the top 10% pay 70% of the taxes in the US.
The bottom 40% pay 0.
The 40-50% bracket pays a total of 3% of the "total".

The top 1% earn about 19% of the income in the US, but pay 37% of the income taxes.

I don't know if you're referring to me but I don't think I was bashing them for being successful. The title of my thread was simply "interesting tax and income figures"

And then in my reply...I merely pointed out that people with large amounts of capital can opt to start a business of some sort and higher workers and receive tax deductions for ordinary and necessary business expenses under s162(a) of the IRC pass the tax base onto a larger base...as was the goal of reagonomics and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

But as to the numbers you put up...the following the correct numbers per the federal reserve.

There are 138 million taxpayers in the U.S.

the top 0.1% of taxpayers by income pay 17.4% of federal income taxes (earning 9.1% of the income), the top 1% with gross income of $328,049 or more pay 36.9% (earning 19%), the top 5% with gross income of $137,056 or more pay 57.1% (earning 33.4%), and the bottom 50% with gross income of $30,122 or less pay 3.3% (earning 13.4%). If the federal taxation rate is compared with the wealth distribution rate, the net wealth (not only income but also including real estate, cars, house, stocks, etc) distribution of the United States does almost coincide with the share of income tax - the top 1% pay 36.9% of federal tax (wealth 32.7%), the top 5% pay 57.1% (wealth 57.2%), top 10% pay 68% (wealth 69.8%), and the bottom 50% pay 3.3% (wealth 2.8%)

www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2003/200324/200324pap.pdf

The top 1% of income earners are those making over of $328,049 or more pay 36.9% of all federal tax receipts and earn 19% of all Gross National Income. It sounds bad until you realize that tax receipts number to about 2.5 trillion and then that GDP is 14.4 trillion.

Hence, 1,380,000 people pay out 922.5 bill in tax but take in 2.736 trillion. That leaves over 1.8 trillion dollars for a little over a million people. about 1,314,130 per person even with paying nearly 40% of federal tax receipts.

Now, suppose they took half of what they paid in taxes and hired workers at say, 50,000$ per hour...the top 1 percent could cut their tax burden in half and pass it on two a broader base and allow for lower rates and employ 9,225,000 people.

You do realize what you are saying is that if I'm rich, the only way to pay less taxes is to hire people, even if I'm rich and don't own a business?

If I am paying 30% (lets say) in taxes on $1 million, I get to take home 70%. If I hire people say 20 of them at $50k, as you are saying, I just lost all of my $1 million instead of just 30%.

Oh yeah, you'll say that "well they'll make you a profit", but then again we are right back to the government taking 30% of that profit anyway.

jmog wrote: You do realize what you are saying is that if I'm rich, the only way to pay less taxes is to hire people, even if I'm rich and don't own a business?

NO. That isn't what I said...I just merely suggested hiring as A...not the ONLY...Catalyst to broaden the base to allow for lower rates spread across the population. The promise of reaganomics was that if you reduced the rates higher wages would follow throughout the population but the drastic increases in income haven't even affected the top ten % in the same way as the very top 1% and .1% of people.

I'm merely just saying the idea...I don't have some agenda here to scorn the rich.

majorspark wrote: Ah the damn rich. Thats the problem our country faces. Those greedy bastards are making big bucks while the rest of us wallow behind.

Lets take that 344.8 million and multiply it by the 400 top wage earners giving them a total of 137.9 billion in total income. Then take the 55.7 million each paid and multiply that by 400 for a total of 22.3 billion in paid taxes. If Washington took every single dollar they earned the feds would only gain 115.6 billion dollars in tax revenue. This would not even bring the estimated 1.171 trillion dollar 2010 federal budget deficit below a trillion.

Your looking in the wrong place. The greedy bastards are in Washington. This class warfare ruse is about to fall apart when those in lower brackets find out the federal government has hidden their burden when it comes to the feds irresponsible spending. Imagine the anger and suprise when these lower and non taxed find out the federal government needs their money too.

Oh relax about the debt already sparky. We've gotten back from a debt as high as 120% of GDP. I know you're set in your ways but just have a read.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99927343

majorspark wrote: Ah the damn rich. Thats the problem our country faces. Those greedy bastards are making big bucks while the rest of us wallow behind.

Lets take that 344.8 million and multiply it by the 400 top wage earners giving them a total of 137.9 billion in total income. Then take the 55.7 million each paid and multiply that by 400 for a total of 22.3 billion in paid taxes. If Washington took every single dollar they earned the feds would only gain 115.6 billion dollars in tax revenue. This would not even bring the estimated 1.171 trillion dollar 2010 federal budget deficit below a trillion.

Your looking in the wrong place. The greedy bastards are in Washington. This class warfare ruse is about to fall apart when those in lower brackets find out the federal government has hidden their burden when it comes to the feds irresponsible spending. Imagine the anger and suprise when these lower and non taxed find out the federal government needs their money too.

<standing ovation>

If there's a political tactic that I hate more than the class warfare ruse currently in vogue -- I haven't come across it yet.

"Now, suppose they took half of what they paid in taxes and hired workers at say, 50,000$ per hour...the top 1 percent could cut their tax burden in half and pass it on two a broader base and allow for lower rates and employ 9,225,000 people. "

What are you talking about? Are "rich" people supposed to just hire people because they are rich? Are you suggesting that folks like LeBron James, TomCat Cruise, Tiger Woods, etc. employ people for "God knows what reason" for the sake of the economy?

Was this even a serious post?

Manhattan Buckeye wrote: "Now, suppose they took half of what they paid in taxes and hired workers at say, 50,000$ per hour...the top 1 percent could cut their tax burden in half and pass it on two a broader base and allow for lower rates and employ 9,225,000 people. "

What are you talking about? Are "rich" people supposed to just hire people because they are rich? Are you suggesting that folks like LeBron James, TomCat Cruise, Tiger Woods, etc. employ people for "God knows what reason" for the sake of the economy?

Was this even a serious post?

No that's not what I meant.

Writerbuckeye wrote:
<standing ovation>

If there's a political tactic that I hate more than the class warfare ruse currently in vogue -- I haven't come across it yet.

Nobody said anything about taking more from the rich against their will or vilifying the rich.

BoatShoes wrote:

Manhattan Buckeye wrote: "Now, suppose they took half of what they paid in taxes and hired workers at say, 50,000$ per hour...the top 1 percent could cut their tax burden in half and pass it on two a broader base and allow for lower rates and employ 9,225,000 people. "

What are you talking about? Are "rich" people supposed to just hire people because they are rich? Are you suggesting that folks like LeBron James, TomCat Cruise, Tiger Woods, etc. employ people for "God knows what reason" for the sake of the economy?

Was this even a serious post?

No that's not what I meant.

It would be cheaper for Tiger to hiring someone at $50,000 to babysit him from having a "relapse" then paying out all that cash to his wife and the loss of endorsements.

BoatShoes wrote:

Writerbuckeye wrote:
<standing ovation>

If there's a political tactic that I hate more than the class warfare ruse currently in vogue -- I haven't come across it yet.

Nobody said anything about taking more from the rich against their will or vilifying the rich.

I'm sure you posted this to show how wonderful you thought it all was. :rolleyes:

Reaganomics would work if people weren't greedy.

When some CEO's of corporations make as much in a day as an average employee of the same corporation makes in a year, something is wrong. Call it class warfare, call it whatever the hell you want. It's just greed...and it's wrong, IMO.

Reagonomics works because people ARE greedy.

When a CEO brings as much to the table in one day as an average employee does over the year, something is wrong. Call it elitism, call it whatever the hell you want.

fan_from_texas wrote:When a CEO brings as much to the table in one day as an average employee does over the year, something is wrong. Call it elitism, call it whatever the hell you want.

In theory yes but who the hell are we to judge what a person should or should not earn even if that income seems obscene?

The mindset that says redistribution of wealth to even the economic playing field regardless of a person's education, accomplishments, labor, and life circumstances is equally obscene.

Arbitrary and capricious confiscation of one person's wealth by the government and redistribution of that wealth to others is theft plain and simple.

fan_from_texas wrote: Reagonomics works because people ARE greedy.

When a CEO brings as much to the table in one day as an average employee does over the year, something is wrong. Call it elitism, call it whatever the hell you want.

I speak only for myself here...but if I were a CEO or owner of an incredibly profitable business, and I was making 1000 times what my average employee was making, I would feel guilty. These people are obviously doing something right and working hard if the business is making incredible profits, and it would only be right to significantly reward the employees, not keep all of the money for myself.

I don't begrudge any business owner or executive a very nice compensation package...but hundreds and sometimes even thousands of times more than the employees? I just have a problem with that. Call me what you want.

Gobuckeyes1 wrote:

fan_from_texas wrote: Reagonomics works because people ARE greedy.

When a CEO brings as much to the table in one day as an average employee does over the year, something is wrong. Call it elitism, call it whatever the hell you want.

I speak only for myself here...but if I were a CEO or owner of an incredibly profitable business, and I was making 1000 times what my average employee was making, I would feel guilty. These people are obviously doing something right and working hard if the business is making incredible profits, and it would only be right to significantly reward the employees, not keep all of the money for myself.

I don't begrudge any business owner or executive a very nice compensation package...but hundreds and sometimes even thousands of times more than the employees? I just have a problem with that. Call me what you want.

I wouldn't call you anything. I'm guessing there are many people who feel the way you do, including many CEO's.

The issue is whether or not the government should be the decider in how much money is "too much".

How you FEEL isn't the issue, Gobuckeyes...it's whether or not the force of law should be used to "even" the playing field.

RiverRat13 wrote: The issue is whether or not the government should be the decider in how much money is "too much".

This.

And no, the government should not have any say in this....

Writerbuckeye wrote: How you FEEL isn't the issue, Gobuckeyes...it's whether or not the force of law should be used to "even" the playing field.

If enough people share an opinion on any subject, they can eventually work to have laws changed to reflect their opinion. It has happened throughout history.

I don't know what the answer is...I can see both sides of the argument. I just know that unregulated greed played a part in our recent economic troubles.