On Taxes and Safety Nets

Tax Year used for Data: 2012

So, taxes are in the news, a lot, not just lately either, it's pretty much always been a thing, just some of us don't notice till we are older, and PART of the tax paying community.


Now, there are, in the United States, a hundred different types of taxes, from Sales Tax, to Alcohol Tax, however, in this post, I will be talking specifically about that most dreaded tax.  The Income Tax.  The one EVERYONE has hate for, from the very bottom of the lowest earning families all the way to the richest, Koch brotherliest families.

To set the ground, I am personally not for increasing the tax burden specifically on rich people 'simply because they can afford it'.   That's a silly argument.  If you can afford to pay McDonalds 10 dollars for a single cheeseburger, instead of the couple dollars it is, should you?

So, according to the IRS websites Income Tax Statistics section for the Tax Year of 2012, income tax on all households was a 'little' over 1(One) trillion dollars.  Seriously.  It actually sat at around 1.18 trillion, I use the little rabbit ears, because while it's only a little over 1 trillion, that still comes to around a hundred billion dollars. 

The total income tax paid by people making over 100k dollars a year came to around 920 billion dollars.   That means that over 90% of all income tax paid on the Federal level was paid by people making over 100k a year.  Now, how many people do you know who make over 100k a year?  Not a lot.  They are only 20 million people in the United States that make over 100k a year.  Out of 314 million people, 20 million people paid 90% of all income tax collected in the country.  Approximately 144 million returns were filed in 2012, and out of those filed, roughly 124 million people paid only 10% of all taxes collected.

314 million people was the population of the United States in 2012.  Out of that, only 144 million returns were filed.  And out of those, 20 million people paid 90% of the taxes.  People making less than 100k a year paid just 10% of the income tax.   The highest earning families, 'the top 10%' in the United States have an effective tax rate of just under 40%.  While the bottom 50%, those households making less than 30k a year, roughly 118 million of filers, have an effective tax rate of less than 15%


I personally do not believe we should increase the tax burden on the wealthy anymore than we are already trying to, as they are already bearing a massive brunt of the burden, and increasing the tax burden on the wealthy will substantially hurt the poor, as the wealthy decide to put their holdings somewhere, well, where they can actually hold them, the tax burden will fall on lower and lower income brackets.


Let me know what you think, if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them, leave a comment if you'd like, follow if you would like, check back in later, not all topics posted on my blog will be about tax or financial issues, some will be about government in general, some will just be about stuff I may be interested in learning about.