Monday, March 11, 2013
On Paying One's "Fair Share"
According to Duquesne economist, Antony Davies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5Gkox-1QY), the effective tax rate (for all federal taxes; income, FICA, gas, etc.) for the top 5% of household's is approximately 29% (this is almost identical to number that I got from the Tax Policy Center circa 2007). This is essentially triple the effective rate for the bottom 95% (10.8%)....AGAIN, how can it be asserted here that the rich are somehow not paying their fair-share? I mean, yeah, maybe we can get a little bit more out of them but do we really need to browbeat people (a lot of whom went to school for 8 years and who also worked 60-80 hour weeks) as we do so?
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Oh, and the bottom quintile of households, their effective rate (again, for ALL federal taxes) is -1%. Try and fair-share that sucker.
Where would you prefer to be, in the bottom 25% paying -1% or the top 5% paying 29%?
Will: Then, the often-heard claims that the tax system benefits the rich, or that it redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich, are real whopperss, aren't they? Right up there with claiming that Al Gore won the 2000 election.
By "fair share" Liberals mean "rich" people pay the share of "poor" people (rich people being those who work hard and are therefore slightly better off and poor people being those too lazy to work who believe their needs should be provied for by a nanny state government).
It's the Liberal entitlement mentatily that causes them to believe that this kind of thievery is "fair".
Jerry, I would rather be in the top 5% but that would probably necessitate going to law school, medical school, or gain entry into other such fields (architecture, for example) that I have neither the interest or the acumen for OR become a businessman and work 60-80 hour weeks. Those things being the case, I'm happy where I am.
And one of the things that I constantly hear is that poor people DO pay taxes (payroll taxes, etc.) and even that doesn't appear to be the case when you factor it all together.
Just more of the ample evidence than the 1% are like the beasts of burden who carry the deadweight around.
Well, it certainly appears that the current tax structure is not inhibiting the accumulation of wealth at the very top according to this video. And the accumulation is much greater than most people think it is or that it should be.
Fair is a subjective concept and therefore best dropped from our dictionary and usage.
I would just add that these categories of income and wealth are hardly static. Just in 2011 alone, the Forbes richest 400 had 18 new members, a 4.5% change in just one year.
The progressive analysis falls apart in that it exclusively seems to looks at categories and not at flesh and blood folks. If you look at the bottom quintile in 1996, 58% of the people who comprised it were out of it and into another quintile by 2005 AND their income had grown by a substantial 91%. You gotta think that some of that money go saved.
I wonder what the death rate of the top 400 is? That alone would add new members.
I think that a lot more of it has to do with innovative young people such as Mark Cuban and the Facebook fellow bringing to the American people goods and services that the people like and hence supplanting others who've slipped (the last of the Forbes richest that I recall croking was Steve Jobs a couple years ago).
Exactly, RN. The concept of "fair" is so often abused beyond all meaning. I see it used so much by ignorant outsiders who say this or that deal or situation was not fair, while those directly involved say it is.
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