Wednesday, April 7, 2010

47% of US Households Don't Pay Fed Income Tax

so who is paying and how much?

Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax
(4/7/2010 AP via Yahoo Finance)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.

In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.

What's more interesting to me is not so much that nearly half of US households do not pay to the federal government as this question: Then WHO pays and HOW MUCH?

10% of US households pay whopping 73% of the federal personal income tax.
If you go to another tax research organization called the Tax Foundation, you will find this article also, which says:
1% of US households pay over 40% of the federal personal income tax.
The above AP article also says that the bottom 40% actually make money in the form of tax credit from the government.

This article from the Tax Foundation in 2008 also tells us that the United States already has the most progressive (meaning pro-poor) income tax system among OECD nations. More so than the still very socialist France or Sweden. Under Obama, the pace is firmly set to accelerate.

With the introduction of VAT that one of the Obama's econ advisers Paul Volcker (hey whatever happened to that so-called "Volcker rule"?) wants his boss to introduce, America will become more "European" than Europe. Add cap and trade crap, and immigration "reform", all of which are designed to take in more and more from the tax-paying populace and give it to the "poor" through massive government bureaucracy as the government bureaucrats see fit.

I guess the president didn't grow up listening to one of Aesop's fables, The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs.

He surely hasn't heard of the early pilgrims who came close to extinction by having adopted the policy of forcible wealth redistribution.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

VAT is another double taxation system. Consider those of us who saved money. Now we are going to get slammed paying a VAT tax, as appose to people that spent every dime they had.

I suppose I will spend ever dime I have saved too before the VAT because law. I don't want to pay a 15% to 20% tax on my savings. I've already paid 50% on the dollar on federal, state, payroll tax.

When the VAT hits the ecomomy its going to kill it. Europe has been able to survive because it had been able to rely on exports to cover its entitlements. Since the US runs trade deficits, there is no way the US economy can survive with a VAT.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Yup. Add inflation to that, and we've been already paying huge amount to the most unproductive sector of the economy, i.e. the government.

Today's $100 is worth only $79 in 2000 dollar. $60 in 1990 dollar.

I'm afraid that the government, by its nature, wants recession, or worse, depression. More power, more control.

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