At 10:41 AM 4/14/5, Jed Rothwell wrote: >These percentages are much too high. I should not try to quote these things >off the top of my head. Here are the corrected figures as reported in the >New York Times a few years ago. > >Income group, Average pretax income, Total government tax receipts, As a >percentage of income >Bottom 20%, $7,946, $1449, 18% >Second 20%, $20,319, $2847, 14% >Middle 20%, $35,536, $5,622, 16% >Fourth 20%, $56,891, $9,835, 17% >Top 20%, $116,666, $21,623, 19%
This looks utterly bogus! Possibly more oriented around witholding than actual tax maybe? It looks like no one bothered to even look at a form 1040. Consider this year for example (other years similar, just slightly different numbers). A single person gets $7,950 in deductions right off, so would not pay any federal taxes at all on $7,946. If the percentage is based on taxable income and not adjusted gross income, then that percentage is highly misleading. For example the first line of numbers for this year should be: Bottom 20%, $7,946, $795, 5%, where the 5% is of actual income of $7,946 + $7,950 = $15,896. After taking the deductions, the tax table this year applies the formula: $0 - $7150, 10% $7150 - $29,050, 15% $29,050 - $70,350, 25% $70,350 - $146750, 28% etc. HOWEVER, people making over $100,000 are increasingly getting it socked to them at a much higher rate in the form of an alternative minimum tax. This also does not include the possibility of Earned Income Credit (EIC) for the low end wage earners. There is no way to get to $1,449 taxes on $7,946 actual income. All the $1,449 would have to be state and local taxes and sales tax, and that just can't be 18%, unless maybe all the money were spent on booze, cigarettes, and gasolene. 8^) Regards, Horace Heffner
