The following charts are from the website of the National Taxpayers Union (actual data comes from the IRS).
If you feel that the data here is false, please provide data (not commentaries) that prove otherwise.
For Tax Year 2003
|
Percentiles Ranked by AGI |
AGI Threshold on Percentiles |
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid |
|
Top 1% |
$295,495 |
34.27 |
|
Top 5% |
$130,080 |
54.36 |
|
Top 10% |
$94,891 |
65.84 |
|
Top 25% |
$57,343 |
83.88 |
|
Top 50% |
$29,019 |
96.54 |
|
Bottom 50% |
< $29,019 |
3.46 |
|
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income Source: Internal Revenue Service |
||
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For Tax Year 2002
|
Percentiles Ranked by AGI |
AGI Threshold on Percentiles |
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid |
|
Top 1% |
$285,424 |
33.71 |
|
Top 5% |
$126,525 |
53.80 |
|
Top 10% |
$92,663 |
65.73 |
|
Top 25% |
$56,401 |
83.90 |
|
Top 50% |
$28,654 |
96.50 |
|
Bottom 50% |
< $28,654 |
3.50 |
|
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income Source: Internal Revenue Service |
||
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For Tax Year 2001
|
Percentiles Ranked by AGI |
AGI Threshold on Percentiles |
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid |
|
Top 1% |
$292,913 |
33.89 |
|
Top 5% |
$127,904 |
53.25 |
|
Top 10% |
$92,754 |
64.89 |
|
Top 25% |
$56,085 |
82.90 |
|
Top 50% |
$28,528 |
96.03 |
|
Bottom 50% |
< $28,528 |
3.97 |
|
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income Source: Internal Revenue Service |
||
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For Tax Year 2000
|
Percentiles Ranked by AGI |
AGI Threshold on Percentiles |
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid |
|
Top 1% |
$313,469 |
37.42 |
|
Top 5% |
$128,336 |
56.47 |
|
Top 10% |
$92,144 |
67.33 |
|
Top 25% |
$55,225 |
84.01 |
|
Top 50% |
$27,682 |
96.09 |
|
Bottom 50% |
< $27,682 |
3.91 |
|
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income Source: Internal Revenue Service |
||
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For Tax Year 1999
|
Percentiles Ranked by AGI |
AGI Threshold on Percentiles |
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid |
|
Top 1% |
$293,415 |
36.18 |
|
Top 5% |
$120,846 |
55.45 |
|
Top 10% |
$87,682 |
66.45 |
|
Top 25% |
$52,965 |
83.54 |
|
Top 50% |
$26,415 |
96.00 |
|
Bottom 50% |
< $26,415 |
4.00 |
|
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income Source: Internal Revenue Service |
||
If these numbers can correlate to last year’s taxes, I paid in the top 1%.
If Sen. Obama is going to siphon more out of me and spread it about (I own my own business now), I should at least get to make decision where MY MONEY goes.
I am not interested in providing do-nothing slackers a kickback to sit around all day.
I work hard and my employees work even harder for all of us to be successful. It’s pretty binary in today’s world of small businesses: either you make money or you go out of business.
Now, the potential for my business is to feed everyone all the fish I caught. What’s in it for me or anyone for that matter to even have a business.
Nice Website.
The top 5% currently pay 54% of taxes (this is based off of the 2005 Treasury estimates) while they earn 31% of the income. Now Senator Obama wants to tax them more. Is that fair? The bottom 50% of the people pay little or no taxes. How do you get a tax break if you don’t pay taxes?
I in the bottom 50% and I have always had to pay taxes. And guess what, as a practicing Christian I pay tithe to my church from every one of my paychecks. I have two degrees, no kids and I’m not married so that means I pay even more in taxes. So I wish that people that have no idea about the people in the bottom 50% would shut up about things they have no idea about. Warren Buffet put a challenge out to all billionaires to compare the percentage of their income that they pay to the IRS to the percentage that their secretaries pay. If they paid more than their secretaries he would pay 1 million dollars to a charity. No one has taken him up on the offer. Three of his friends tried it and they all realized that they paid less.
I in the bottom 50% and I have always had to pay taxes.
So has everyone else. The only problem is that those over the 50% pay way more.
as a practicing Christian I pay tithe to my church from every one of my paychecks.
Which, btw are TAX DEDUCTABLE contributions.
Since you are going to drag out Buffet on this one, let me remind you that what he did was by no stretch of the imagination charity.
Read this link
Ol’ boy is getting a guaranteed 10% dividend FOR LIFE for what he did for Goldman Sachs. Ask his secretary if she is getting the same hook up.
Duane if you would have read what I wrote, you would see that I am responding to Craig’s comment about the bottom 50% paying little to no taxes. I am sick of people stating this because this is not true for me and clearly it is not true for you. I am glad to see a fellow Christian paying their tithes as we believe in. And of course I know that tithing is tax deductable. And since you’re talking about me dragging out Buffet read the following article that abc put out regarding what Buffett stated. Part of the article states “Buffett says he pays 18 percent of his salary to the IRS while the rest of his staff pays nearly twice that — 33 percent”. Also, the point of him giving 1 million dollars to charity was a bet for any billionair that can show that his secretary/staff did not pay more in taxes than they did. The link to the article follows, http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3869458&page=1 I am not talking about his investment. Buffett is getting a guaranteed dividend, so what. Because of his investment the stock rose. As he states in his article, Buffett invests when everyone is scared due to stocks being sold at a discount and he does not invest when everyone is greedy. Duane please read the full statement before you respond next time. We are on the same side from what you have written.
I apologize that I did not add the link to the Buffett article talking about current events and when he does invest and when he doesn’t. The link follows http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I am sick of people stating this because this is not true for me and clearly it is not true for you.
Craig, I am reading what you said and still I disagree with it. When you look at the percentages, much of the tax burden has been on the “rich” for some time. When I did security a few years back, I used to get mad about the taxes coming out of my little check. Now that our household income has greatly increased, so have those taxes.
As far as tithes go, I stop paying those years ago. After taking the time to really study the word myself and not just depend on the interpretation of a preacher, I found nothing demanding Christians to pay a tithe. I’ve talked about this on the site some time ago. I’m sure if you search for it you will find it.
“Buffett says he pays 18 percent of his salary to the IRS while the rest of his staff pays nearly twice that — 33 percent”.
Much of his income comes from capital gains, not wages like his secretary.
I am not talking about his investment. Buffett is getting a guaranteed dividend, so what.
So what? If he wants to be on par with his secretary’s tax rate, he should contribute more of his earnings to the IRS–not wait for a law to demand it of him.
Wiley 10/19/08
So many people are missing the point here. The America I grew up in put a premium on taking advantage of the opportunities a free society like ours provided, in order to better oneself and one’s family in life.
Never were we raised to think we were entitled to reach into someone else’s pockets just because he had done better than we.
We all make choices in life. Some good; some bad, but all ours. Are we then to come whining to the government to steal from our fellow citizens who made better choices, or perhaps worked harder for what the earned than we, merely because we chose the path we took?
I am a firm believer in captialism, not because I believe it is a perfect system, but because it is the only one (when coupled with freedom) that enables the individual to do so much more with his life than ever he could under a monarchy, socialistic, totalitarian, or communistic state.
Speaking of which, I cannot be the only one around who recognizes Obama for the communist that he is. When he told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread the wealth around, that was nothing more than paraphrasing Karl Marx, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
And, of course, the government decides who and what constitutes needy. No Thanks, brother. No communistic state has ever succeeced, unless it completely subjugated its people, in some places to levels below slavery.
I find it odd that so many people whose ancestors came from slavery can so easily espouse policies that could put our country on a course to return all of us there.
Amazing!
Duane,
There is now data available for 2006.
A summary is available from The Tax Foundation – http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
The raw data is available from the IRS -
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=133521,00.html
The top 1% earn 22.06 % of the income and pay 38.89% of all income taxes. They have an effective tax rate of 22.79%.
The top 5% earn 36.66 % of the income and pay 60.14 % of all income taxes. They have an effective tax rate of 20.68 %
The top 50% earn 87.49% of the income and pay 97.01% of all income taxes. They have an effective tax rate of 13.98 %.
The bottom 50% earn 12.51 % of the income and pay 2.99% of all income taxes. They have an effective tax rate of 3.01%.
I don’t think that a graduated income tax by itself is evil, but I certainly don’t see how anyone can say that the rich aren’t paying their fair share.
I believe in a much simpler, somewhat flatter tax system. This would allow far fewer exemptions and deductions. I think all income (salaries, dividends, capital gains, etc.) should be taxed the same way.
The tax code should also be neutral. It should not encourage or discourage personal behavior, nor should it distort the market in any way.
Wow, we’re always being told that the “rich” never pay their fair share! Democrats and liberals would LIE to US?
/ sarcasm
Maybe this is a “stupid” question but does spread the wealth really mean to most americans black or white or for that matter of any race “take from the rich and give to the poor” that’s called a Robinhood mentality. I’ve asked around and this was the majority’s answer to be given the same advantage as another ,whether it be tax-breaks federal funded programs grants etc. No one truly can believe that this candidate is saying I’m taking from Joe the plummer and other business men/women like him to give to those that choose not to own thier own business. But why should I or any of my friends,family,children, pay taxes,die in war time for,provide charity funding to,work in,educate ourselves in and not be given the same opportunity as a “Joe the plummer” who I’m sure worked hard for what he has accomplished and so do I and others
Eugene –
Who CARES if billionaires pay less of a *percentage* of their yearly earnings than secretaries? They still pay far MORE in real money!!!
The reason why they pay less *FICA* is because they INVEST in AMERICA!!! They don’t pay taxes on money they put back INTO the system!!!
You basically pay NO taxes, Eugene, none! The tiny bit you do pay is NOTHING compared to what *I* pay, and *I* am the person Obama will be TAXING, not YOU.
I’m sorry you don’t make more money, but I had to claw and scrape and work my BUTT OFF to get where I am. No one GAVE me a darn thing! My parents are lower-middle-class. I lived in a racially mixed neighborhood and I paid my OWN WAY through college, working two jobs to pay for it.
When I got out of school I worked, and worked my butt off to get ahead. I married and paid for my wife to finish her doctorate in psychology. She is a therapist, helping people, making FAR less than I do. I have two children to provide a future and health care for. Please tell me why I must also pay for your children’s health care? Why? Because you make less money than me? How is that fair?
Currently I pay $900 per month to have health care for my family. If Obama raises my taxes I will be VERY hard pressed to keep that up. We will have to go to a lower plan that won’t offer the benefits we need. And why? Because I will have to pay for your children’s health care also. Again, how is that fair?
How would you feel if you DID pay 95% of the taxes, like I do? Huh? What if suddenly a President could cause you to pay another 20% of your take-home pay to pay for some OTHER family’s health care? How would YOU feel about that? I bet you’d sing a different tune then, if suddenly someone came along as you were cashing your check and pulled out 20% of it and said, “This is going to pay for the family’s health care across the street. They make less money than you and they need health care.” How would THAT feel? Well, that is EXACTLY what is going to happen to ME! Make no mistake about that.
It’s all fine and well if the distribution of wealth goes in YOUR favor, but what if it doesn’t? Think about that for a few minutes, take a long, hard look at what it would feel like if someone took 20% of your paycheck away from you to pay someone ELSE’S health care?
I don’t live in a rich part of town, I live in a very middle-class area, that is racially diverse. There are Obama signs all over the place, but when I talk to these people about what Obama is going to do, they DON’T KNOW! It is AMAZING! THEY do NOT know what he is going to do. One of my neighbors with an Obama sign has a variable mortgage rate. I asked him what he was going to do if the mortgage rates skyrocket with Obama in office (as they most SURELY will). He told me, “why would they skyrocket? Do you really think they will?” HAHA! He actually has NO idea what he is in store for! When I sat down at his kitchen table and explained it to him, he took the Obama sign out of his front yard. Two days later there was a McCain sign there! That is no joke.
People who are supporting Obama are the people who DON’T PAY ANY TAXES, or pay VERY LITTLE. Look at it… it’s young people, in college, and many of the lower income minorities who DON’T PAY TAXES (according to the charts this website posted above).
For one moment think about how it would feel to suddenly be FORCED to give up 20% MORE of your paycheck to pay for someone else’s health care, someone else’s groceries.
I give money to my church, so I ALREADY help pay for someone else’s groceries, not to mention the thousands and thousands I pay in income taxes (and other taxes). Now, Obama wants me to pay WAY more to fund his vision of the future. Well, just remember this, if my taxes are raised, I’m going to raise my prices in my business, and guess who most of my customers are? That’s right, middle to lower income people. They will pay MUCH more and THEN maybe they will understand that Obama makes THEM pay as well, only they get to CHOOSE, I DON’T!
I agree with every part of the previous statement^