Thursday, May 05, 2011

The tipping point - TaxProfBlog: "51% of households pay no income tax."

2 comments:

Nigel Tufnel said...

You may want to look a little closer at the referenced letter from Sen. Hatch.

If I'm reading it correctly they broke tax filings into three categories: having no tax liability, receiving a refund and having a tax liability.

Those who received refunds are part of your 51% of supposedly tax-free households. They certainly did pay their share of tax, however. They just paid more than they owed and got back the difference. If having no tax liability simply means you didn't owe anything after filing it doesn't necessarily mean you didn't pay any taxes.

another Eric Lindholm said...

The wealthy get more for their tax dollars, so it's only fair that they pay a higher percentage. Where do you think that wealth comes from? It's generated through an economy that has strength from top to bottom, not from billionaires hoarding what they already have. It's not that much different from an MLM scheme: You need thousands of suckers to buy in at the lower levels so that the guy at the top can score big. The rich should realize that their tax dollars, even if collected against their will, are the fuel for the very engine that can increase their wealth.