This is an interesting website that explains that statistic which gets tossed around a lot.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505

From that web site:
Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers. (In years like the last few, this group also includes a significant number of people who have been unemployed the entire year and cannot find work.)

I agree with you on the tax breaks for NOT farming. I do think that you need to provide deductions for kids and home mortgage interest. $250,000.00 for a single person is very different than $250,000.00 for a family of 4. If you eliminate kids, then are you eliminating spouses who are not working also? Why would you NOT use household income per capita and instead only count income per person who is working? That doesn't make sense to me. Additionally, a lot more people would not be able to afford a house if the mortgage interest deductions were eliminated. The housing market is plenty unstable already. We don't need to add to that problem at this point in its very slow recovery.

The real problem is that the very rich have all kinds of loopholes and the poor have none. Because of those loopholes, they typically pay a lower percentage than the middle class families do.

I agree with AOII Angel. The higher percentage doesn't affect the wealthy as it does those who make much less.

DGTess: Someone should benefit from something to which they don't contribute because we take care of each other as human beings. As noted above, most who do not contribute are a) Students who WILL contribute someday, b) the elderly, who DID contribute for many years and c) the disabled, who we should take care of because we are moral human beings, not "survival of the fittest" monsters.

This argument could be used the other way around too. You have more so you pay more and you deal with it because life isn't fair.

Editing, because I don't want to triple post...lol. Several of my Republican friends are griping on Facebook about the 2% increase in pay roll taxes. Apparently they don't remember that the stimulus package, which the Republicans were against, reduced the Social Security payroll tax by 2%. That is now being reinstated. They should be happy because they didn't want the ARRA in the first place.

I guess I just don't see the logic in taxing certain people more when half the people don't pay (AT ALL), and the government spends millions and billions of dollars every year without batting an eye or thinking about the consequences.

How can you justify hiking tax percentages on the responsible people who are already paying taxes in this country?

It makes no sense.

How about you make the "poor", who have contributed nothing, pay only for the percentage that was just raised on the rich?

If you continue to "punish" the people making money, how can you expect anyone to make more (or want to make more), and throw that money back into the economy? Let me tell you... if I was making $390,000/year, I would try my hardest to do the bare minimum and never get a raise.

I agree. My problem with extra taxes on the wealthy is because those are the people who create jobs. For instance - take someone who owns a car dealership. If they have to pay extra in taxes, they may have to lay people off in order to do so. That leaves people unemployed.

Taxes on the wealthy will barely even make a dent in our current debt situation. Spending cuts are what we need.

They don't pay because they don't have income! I know when I was a college student, I didn't have to pay any federal income taxes. That article goes on to say that lower income people contribute a larger share of their income to social security and medicare than wealthier people do.

If you're living on the $1300 a month you're getting from Social Security after paying federal income tax your whole life, don't you think you've paid your share already? If you took 20% of that income for a flat tax, as some propose, you're asking them to live on $1040 a month. Add $500/month in prescriptions and medicare premiums and they're making $540/month. (My mom's actual figures before she passed away).

I agree with your statement about income being different for a family of four vs. a single person.

I also think that cost of living needs to be taken into account. For instance, my house in Southern Illinois (a modest, two story home) would be probably four times as expensive in somewhere such as San Francisco or Chicago. My grandparents, who live in a Chicago suburb, have a smaller house than us and paid over triple than what we did. $250,000 is a lot different for a family living in an area such as Southern Illinois and a family living in a big city or expensive area.

Where are you getting the idea that low income = no income?

I'm not saying that a flat tax is the answer. But everyone should pay SOMETHING.

If you make $40,000/year, you don't have to pay anything, but if I make over $400,000, I have to pay for you and your entire family?

Uh, no thanks. Everyone should contribute. Otherwise, the whole system falls apart. Because if I was a business owner, and I was taxed at an extremely high percentage, I wouldn't hire additional workers at $40,000... and then you're making nothing.

ETA: Cut the flipping spending!!!

You do have to pay if you're making $40K. You don't make $40K as a student, on disability or from social security.

No you wouldn't. That would shoot yourself in the foot. They don't take all your money over $390,000 so why would you say no to more? That shows you have a fundamental lack of understanding of the way taxes work. I make over that cutoff and will be asking my bosses for more money even though it will mean I pay more in taxes. Why? Because it will also mean I will keep more at home. I will only be taxed a percentage of the income OVER $450,000. The money below that level is taxed at the same rate it was before. It's not like getting a raise means I'm working for free. You'll never get someone to turn down $10 because they have to give $2 to someone else if the alternative is $0. That's just dumb.

So every family making a total of $ 40,000 is paying taxes?

Ok.....

I never said you'd be working for free.. but where's the incentive to work twice as hard if you're not being compensated accordingly?

If a married couple is making $40K, they have to have 6 kids or extreme medical bills or some other bizarre circumstance to not pay any federal income tax.

Realistically, every family is paying taxes, be it state income tax, state sales tax, federal taxes on gas, cigarettes, alcohol, social security and medicare pay roll taxes, local property taxes, city income tax, etc.

You really can't ever say "every family making xxx is paying taxes". There are people making hundreds of thousands who aren't paying taxes because they have the ability to use every loophole in the tax code. A family making $40K is barely making it in most geographic regions, unless someone has given them a free house (inheritance, gift from parents, etc.) But yes, the vast majority of people of making $40K are paying federal income tax.

Dee, there is no use arguing with people who have been indoctrinated with "people don't pay their taxes" and "why would you work hard if they'll just take you money" even though they are ridiculous statements. The Republican Party has done a great job convincing people that someday they will magically be in the 1% and want to protect their "hard earned money" from the government. It's a fallacy. It cracks me up when my mother worries more about what my tax burden will be than her own. Seriously?

As Vito pointed out, no, he can't. Congress, not the president, controls spending.


An interesting approach for arguing that taxes should be fair.

Anyway, life may indeed not be fair, but there can be consequences to taxing those with lower income to the point that they can't pay for essentials. That increases the chance that those people will need government assistance like food stamps, Medicaid, etc.

I think the tax system needs an overhaul, but I think simple answers are not likely to be effective ones. Everyone paying the same percentage may sound appealing on the surface, but if the effect of a system like that is to increase the burden on the government for social services, then is it really effective? Is it preferable to have structured rates that encourage more self-sufficiency for those with lower incomes?

You don't have to talk about me like I'm not here and/or stupid. Im realistic about my potential earnings, I know I'll most likely never be in the 1%, and the Republican party hasn't brainwashed me into thinking that I will be one day.

I can think for myself and form an opinion on my own.. just like you.