“America has been fantastic to me. I have no problem paying whatever I need to pay to keep my country growing.”
Romney Paid 13.9 Percent Tax Rate on $21.6 Million 2010 Income - Bloomberg
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney earned $21.6 million in 2010 and paid 13.9 percent of that amount in income taxes, using the preferential rate on investment income and charitable deductions to pay a smaller share of his earnings than top wage earners typically do.
“Please Raise My Taxes” via LinkedIn town hall meeting with President Obama.
For those who can’t watch clips online, question came from a man who retired at a young age, thanks to the success of a start-up company he worked for that “did quite well” (the man was later identified as the former director of marketing at Google). He asked the president, “Would you please raise my taxes? I would like very much to have the country to continue to invest in things like Pell Grants, and infrastructure, and job training programs that made it possible for me to get to where I am.”
We all benefited from someone investing in us.
We’re a massive, modern nation with a vast economy. We face real challenges, and they’re not the kind of challenges individuals can hope resolve on their own — we need cooperative solutions built around shared action.
This is kind of what Elizabeth Warren was getting at: a lot of people in this country were able to take advantage of certain opportunities with the help of government programs; whether it’s Pell Grants, temporary & disability assistance, guaranteed federal loans for graduates students (like myself), or what have you. When those programs are in jeopardy due to a lack of tax revenue, there is a case to be made that those who willingly took the benefit of those programs (and became successful as a result) should contribute to their upkeep so “the next kid who comes along” will have the same access to opportunities that you had.
This isn’t to say there aren’t principled arguments to be made against government aid for all the things I just mentioned. Libertarians make these arguments all the time, and I don’t find them unreasonable. But essentially what you’re dealing with are two worldviews in which society looks different in a lot of fundamental ways: I guarantee you that if we stopped having the Federal Government guarantee loans for graduate students, for example, less people would be able to go to law school or Med School, because there’s no way private companies would underwrite as many students. And while this can be argued as a good thing for the legal profession, the same argument cannot be made for the Medical profession, which continues to be desperate for new blood.
Twenty-seven polls over last year show Americans support raising taxes on wealthy as part of deficit reduction plan:
“Arghh!!!!!!!! Don’t you have to know anything to write for a major newspaper these days? USA Today told readers that:
“That raise actually might not be as good as it looks. The extra money is nice, but it could very well bump you into the next tax bracket, possibly leaving you with less money than you had before the raise.”
No, no and 286,000 times no! The tax system brackets give marginal rates. This means that if the raise bumps you into a higher bracket then you pay more taxes only on the income in the higher bracket. Suppose that the tax bracket for income under $200k is 25 percent, and for income over $200k is 33 percent. If you get a raise that pushes your income from $195,000 to $205,000 then you only pay the higher 33 percent tax rate on the $5,000 that is above the $200k threshold not your whole income. Therefore, there is no (as in none, nada, not any) way that getting more money, and being pushed into a higher tax bracket will leave you with less money after taxes.
Don’t the writers and editors at USA Today know this? - cepr.net”
Why poor people support tax breaks for the rich?
Why do lower middle-class and working class Americans support tax breaks for the rich? New research suggests it might not be about aspirations—i.e., “Maybe I could be rich someday.” Instead, says the Economist, people are more concerned with how social programs and wealth distribution might help people worse off than them become better off than them.
In other words: Nobody wants to be on the bottom and national economics looks a lot like a junior high locker room.
(via truejerseygirl)
“We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.” - Rick Perry
(Screencap via MSNBC)
Why do half of all Americans pay no federal income taxes? - WaPo
Read Ezra’s breakdown as to why above.
Mr. Klein nails the political demagoguery of this issue here:
Many politicians complain about the number households that don’t pay income taxes. But they complain about them in very general terms. Sen. John Cornyn, for instance, took to the floor of the Senate to argue that “right now, the fact [is] that according to the Committee on Joint Taxation, 51 percent — that is, a majority of American households — paid no income tax in 2009. Zero. Zip. Nada. … Actually, to show how out of whack things have gotten, 30 percent of American households actually made money from the tax system by way of refundable tax credits — the Earned Income Tax Credit, among others. So 51 percent of American households paid no income tax in 2009, but 30 percent actually made money under the current system.” But he wasn’t very clear on what he would do about it.
Would he repeal the Bush tax cuts? That would bring households benefiting from the expanded Child Tax Credit and the lower marginal rates back into the system. Would he propose that seniors get a smaller standard deduction, or pay taxes on their full Social Security benefit? Would he lower the standard deduction for non-seniors? Would he say that these programs should be conducted through direct spending rather than the tax code, and so the Earned Income Tax Credit will simply send low-income beneficiaries a check rather than first wiping out their tax liability? His statement mentioned tax reform, but it didn’t get into any of these details.
It’s all about the Benjamins, Barney
“Here’s the debate we’re gonna have [next year]. I think these people [Republicans] underestimate the support Americans have for our coming together to build roads and keep desperately poor people from starvation and providing decent health [care] and research. And doing a whole lot of things that can only be done if we do them together.
Here’s the choice America is gonna have: We can raise taxes on income above $250,000, and what we’re saying is, for every $1,000 you make over $250,000, we wanna tax you $30 more. If you make $500,000 you’ll pay another $7,500.
I do not believe that will deter anybody from doing anything that is not economically productive. And if we’re gonna save these people $30 on a $1,000 [leave the Bush tax-cuts in place for the top earners] then we’re gonna have to cut environmental clean-up, and we’re not gonna have as many cops and firefighters on the streets. That’ll be the debate next year… That’s the way we’ll put it to people.” - Rep. Barney Frank on MSNBC
This is clearly a winner for the Dems: aggressively campaign on a progressive agenda, like Rep. Frank is calling for. If sold in the right way, the American people would eat it up. Then, with that mandate from the electorate, enact said policies. Sounds relatively simple, right? The problem? Corruption. Cushy private sector jobs will not be waiting for those who manage their political careers like that. A seat on the board of Halliburton will not be waiting if they happen to lose reelection or retire. A high-paying lobbyist gig will not be offered. Cynical, I know. But when winning strategies like the one Rep. Frank is espousing are not used, then what other conclusion am I left?
(via evangotlib)
19 Different Polls Show That Americans Support Tax Increases To Cut Deficit
(via ryking)
“Apparently, conservatives believe that a key driver of overall job growth is the tax rate that rich people pay on their last dollar of income. They argue that these very rich people are the ones who “create” the jobs and therefore taxing them at even slightly higher rates will make them less likely to invest, expand their businesses, and hire more people. That sounds plausible, but it turns out to be completely baseless.
In fact, they are just as wrong about this as they are about the relationship between marginal tax rates and overall economic growth. In the past 60 years, job growth has actually been greater in years when the top income tax rate was much higher than it is now.” - Michael Linden, Center for American Progress
![“[F]inally a tax plan has emerged that makes more sense than anything anyone in Congress or the White House has proposed in American taxation in my adulthood. It is the Fairness in Taxation Act, introduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, and surely on its way to nowhere legislatively. It would provide for higher tax bracket for the rich, the truly rich. Not people making 250,000 dollars a year, not couples making 250,000 dollars a year.
It would provide new tax brackets for millionaires, for real millionaires. For incomes over a million dollars, the new bracket would be 45 percent. Over 10 million dollars, taxes would go up one percent to 46 percent. For incomes over 20 million dollars, it would be 47 percent. For incomes over 100 million dollars, the tax rate would be 48 percent.And the top tax bracket would be for incomes over a billion dollars at 49 percent. Those rates on those 21st century incomes, which we now know to be common in our economy—all of those rates are still lower than the top tax bracket when Ronald Reagan was president. All of those tax brackets are more than affordable at those income levels. All of those income levels are now taxed at a maximum of only 35 percent. And everyone who lives at those income levels, employs at great expense, accountants and lawyers who found legal tax avoidance strategies that reduce their real income tax rate to something far below 35 percent. None of them, not one of them actually pays 35 percent of their income in federal taxation. No one does, not one taxpayer. (…)What every Republican is going to continue to lie about in the face of all the facts to the contrary is that tax cuts will magically increase revenue to the federal government. With the Bush tax cuts, we now have a ten-year irrefutable proof that that is a lie.
But you would have to be born yesterday in our politics to believe or hope that there could ever be a mathematical proof or a set of facts that could ever get Republican presidential candidates, even the smart ones who know better, to stop lying about taxes.” - Lawrence O’Donnell, Watch](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmhg0ks4oa1qz80pso1_1280.jpg)
“[F]inally a tax plan has emerged that makes more sense than anything anyone in Congress or the White House has proposed in American taxation in my adulthood.
It is the Fairness in Taxation Act, introduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, and surely on its way to nowhere legislatively. It would provide for higher tax bracket for the rich, the truly rich. Not people making 250,000 dollars a year, not couples making 250,000 dollars a year.
It would provide new tax brackets for millionaires, for real millionaires. For incomes over a million dollars, the new bracket would be 45 percent. Over 10 million dollars, taxes would go up one percent to 46 percent. For incomes over 20 million dollars, it would be 47 percent. For incomes over 100 million dollars, the tax rate would be 48 percent.
And the top tax bracket would be for incomes over a billion dollars at 49 percent.
Those rates on those 21st century incomes, which we now know to be common in our economy—all of those rates are still lower than the top tax bracket when Ronald Reagan was president. All of those tax brackets are more than affordable at those income levels. All of those income levels are now taxed at a maximum of only 35 percent.
And everyone who lives at those income levels, employs at great expense, accountants and lawyers who found legal tax avoidance strategies that reduce their real income tax rate to something far below 35 percent. None of them, not one of them actually pays 35 percent of their income in federal taxation.
No one does, not one taxpayer.
(…)
What every Republican is going to continue to lie about in the face of all the facts to the contrary is that tax cuts will magically increase revenue to the federal government. With the Bush tax cuts, we now have a ten-year irrefutable proof that that is a lie.
But you would have to be born yesterday in our politics to believe or hope that there could ever be a mathematical proof or a set of facts that could ever get Republican presidential candidates, even the smart ones who know better, to stop lying about taxes.” - Lawrence O’Donnell, Watch
“Both the House Republican budget and the GOP “jobs plan” released last week include a cut in the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Even though the Congressional Budget Office has found that cutting the corporate tax rate is not a particularly effective way to create jobs, the GOP has continually pushed this cut as a prescription for what ails the economy.
On Fox News Sunday today, conservative commentator Bill Kristol threw cold water on the GOP’s fixation with the corporate tax rate, saying that Republicans “are making a mistake” because “the corporate tax rate is not killing big business in America…”
