l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 by Rossputin
Even the Obama-loving AP has debunked the claim that President Obama will
make again tonight, using Warren Buffet’s secretary as cannon fodder, that
the rich need to pay more in taxes:
http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-rich-taxed-less-secretaries-07
FACT CHECK: Are rich taxed less than secretaries?
APBy STEPHEN OHLEMACHER - Associated Press | AP – Tue, Sep 20, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure
millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries. The data say
they already are.
"Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren
Buffett. There is no justification for it," Obama said as he announced his
deficit-reduction plan this week. "It is wrong that in the United States of
America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000
should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million."
On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the
middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay
at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of
the overall taxes collected by the federal government.
The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of
all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes,
according to the Congressional Budget Office.
In his White House address on Monday, Obama called on Congress to increase
taxes by $1.5 trillion as part of a 10-year deficit reduction package
totaling more than $3 trillion. He proposed that Congress overhaul the tax
code and impose what he called the "Buffett rule," named for the billionaire
investor.
The rule says, "People making more than $1 million a year should not pay a
smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay."
Buffett wrote in a recent piece for The New York Times that the tax rate he
paid last year was lower than that paid by any of the other 20 people in his
office.
"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and
billionaires," Obama said. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to
argue against that."
There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than
middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with
incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the
Internal Revenue Service. But that's less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,
000 returns with incomes above $1 million.
This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.
1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll
taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington
think tank.
Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15
percent of their income in federal taxes.
Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making
between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their
income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will
pay 5.7 percent.
The latest IRS figures are a few years older — and limited to federal
income taxes — but show much the same thing. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1
million or more paid on average 24.4 percent of their income in federal
income taxes, according to the IRS.
Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9 percent in federal
income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3 percent.
Obama's claim hinges on the fact that, for high-income families and
individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages.
The top tax rate for dividends and capital gains is 15 percent. The top
marginal tax rate for wages is 35 percent, though that is reserved for
taxable income above $379,150.
With tax rates that high, why do so many people pay at lower rates? Because
the tax code is riddled with more than $1 trillion in deductions, exemptions
and credits, and they benefit people at every income level, according to
data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official
scorekeeper on revenue issues.
The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46 percent of households, mostly low-
and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year.
Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.
"People who are doing quite well and worry about low-income people not
paying any taxes bemoan the fact that they get so many tax breaks that they
are zeroed out," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy
Center. "People at the bottom of the distribution say, 'But all of those
rich guys are getting bigger tax breaks than we're getting,' which is also
the case."
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed at a White House briefing on
the number of millionaires who pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-income
families. He demurred, saying that people who make most of their money in
wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income
from investments pay at lower rates.
"So it really depends on what is your profession, where's the source of your
income, what's the specific circumstances you face, and the averages won't
really capture that," Geithner said. |
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