Make $32K? You're in the richer 50%

[Masterquick]

Other new IRS data: While the top 1% of US earners, collectively, make nearly twice that of the bottom 50%, those at the top also pay 13 times more in individual income taxes combined.


With the presidential election right around the corner, what better time to take a fresh look at how the nation's tax bill is distributed among its citizens?

After all, no matter what the conditions -- war or peace, prosperity or recession -- no issue seems to get under voters' skins more or command more attention from politicians than whether taxes will rise or fall and, frankly, whose ox will be gored.

New statistics from the Internal Revenue Service show that the highest-earning 1% of taxpayers in America make 22.06% of all income reported to the government. That's almost twice the 12.51% of total income earned collectively by the lowest-earning 50% of workers. Yes, 1.4 million taxpayers claim 22% of income earned while 68 million share just 12.5%.

But get this: When it comes to taxes paid, an even wider discrepancy shows itself, in reverse. Those earners in the top 1% pay 39.89% of all federal individual income taxes. The bottom 50% of earners pay just 2.99% of those taxes.

These income and tax-burden breakdowns come from information reported on 2006 individual income-tax returns, the latest of which have been analyzed by the government. Income categories are based on adjusted gross income (AGI), which is basically salary plus investment, rental and business income minus investment losses and expenses such as alimony paid, contributions to retirement plans, moving expenses and a few other costs.




This is the first time that the bottom half of taxpayers have paid less than 3% of the total income-tax bill.

(Note that these figures include only federal income taxes. According to one study, 56% of all wage earners pay more in Social Security and Medicare taxes than they do in income tax, and the percentage soars to 86% if you count both the employer and employee shares of those taxes.)

In 1986, the top 1% of earners reported 11% of all income and paid 26% of the income taxes; the lower-earning 50% made 17% of the income and paid 6% of the nation's individual income-tax bill.

How does your income stack up?
The data also make it easy for you to know how your income stacks up against that of your fellow citizens. The numbers show that an income of $31,988 or more puts you in the top half of taxpayers. Earning a bit more than twice that much -- $64,703 -- places you among the top 25% of all wage earners. You crack the elite top 10% if you earn $108,905 or more.

And $388,807 buys top bragging rights: Earn that much or more, and you're among the top 1% of all American earners.



A Kiplinger calculator quickly shows you -- based on your AGI -- which income category you fall into and what percentage of the nation's tax burden is borne collectively by you and your fellow citizens in that category.

The following table shows the percentage of income earned and tax burden paid by people in each income category:

Measuring the tax burden Income category 2006 AGI % of all income % of income taxes paid
Top 1%
$388,807 or more
22%
40%

Top 5%
$153,543 or more
37%
60%

Top 10%
$108,905 or more
47%
71%

Top 25%
$64,703 or more
68%
86%

Top 50%
$31,988 or more
88%
97%

Bottom 50%
$31,987 or less
13%
3%

Source: IRS






This story was reported and written by Kevin McCormally for Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.

Published Oct. 3, 2008

[Breakage]

the IRS only counts people who actually file returns.

the idea that the bottom 50% pay 3% all the while people who are on welfare do not count as a zero paid,

is hysterical.

Try the bottom 50% not only don't pay 3%,
they don't pay anything and actually are net minus contributors.



BTW nice to see you are all for freeloading scumbagism.

[Breakage]

Don't forget since neither you nor I are obviously in the bottom 50%,
as I can tell by your looking down your nose at these people,


any idiot can do it.
we are not special,
the people at the bottom of the income ladder are not victims.

[Masterquick]

Originally Posted by Breakage

Don't forget since neither you nor I are obviously in the bottom 50%,
as I can tell by your looking down your nose at these people,


any idiot can do it.
we are not special,
the people at the bottom of the income ladder are not victims.

Where do you get the idea that I look down my nose at these people ? If anything, I glare at the Yous of the world, who gloat because they think they're better than the less fortunate and excuse it by saying they had the same opportunity as you did.

[Breakage]

Is that some kind of a joke?

The thread title obviously mocks their income.

and you are a moron for thinking everyone making less than 32K a year is a victim in a land of boundless opportunity.s

suck up that liberal scumbagism where everyone is a victim and no one is accountable or responsible.

it fits you well, guy who clearly made out thanks to Bush economic policies and thinks everyone above him on the income ladder is a crook.

[Masterquick]

Originally Posted by Breakage

Is that some kind of a joke?

The thread title obviously mocks their income.

and you are a moron for thinking anyone making less than 32K a year is a victim in a land of boundless opportunity.

Look dickweed, you're the guy who thinks that these people pay no taxes at all. I posted this just to refute you idiocy. You're the guy who thinks the system is cheating you. Thus making you the victim. And you'll never stop screaming about it, because your goal in life is to relentlessly pursue money, period.

[Breakage]

Yea greed is bad,
it is only responsible for everything in your fukkin life you moron.


You are the victim, the money they take from me cannot be used to invest in new **** depriving the yous of the world things like plasma TVs, new drugs basically everything that is your fukkin existence.



Maybe in between your bouts playing penny social scientist you'll figure out how it is people come here with nothing not speaking a word of english and fare better than the poor people that are already here.

[Breakage]

and you are a moron for thinking anyone making less than 32K a year is a victim in a land of boundless opportunity.

[Masterquick]

Originally Posted by Breakage

Yea greed is bad,
it is only responsible for everything in your fukkin life you moron.

I know plenty of guys that are so greedy, that they would be willing to stand in a long line just to piss on you if you caught fire.

[Breakage]

Yea same opportunities,

I lost everything in a hurricane 9 yrs ago,

funny though not only didn't they give me an ATM card,

the government basically didn't give me jack**** except a tax writeoff for my losses.




Keep talking out of your ass, sure moron we are the recipients of "special" opportunity,
only afforded certain idiots and not others.

[Masterquick]

Originally Posted by Breakage

Yea same opportunities,

I lost everything in a hurricane 9 yrs ago,

funny though not only didn't they give me an ATM card,

the government basically didn't give me jack**** except a tax writeoff for my losses.




Keep talking out of your ass, sure moron we are the recipients of "special" opportunity,
only afforded certain idiots and not others.

Now we get to the root of the animosity and rage. You are a victim. Shoulda went to your local meth dealer ( who makes six figures of unreported cash, and draws welfare ) and asked him for help.

[Breakage]

the root of everything is morons like you too fukkin blind or stupid to see what the fukk is going on.

52.6% of all US households receive a check from the government once a month.

Unlike your idiotic self and the other morons around here,
I know the solution to being poor is not the perpetually proven failure of government dependency,

maybe at some point you should come down from that liberal scumbag ivory tower where you and the beaurocrats know everything,
and actually mingle with the poor folks.

[Breakage]

Overall, the bottom 60% of income earners pay less than 1% of federal income taxes on net. When "tax credits" primarily go to this group in the form of checks from the government (rather than a reduction in their tax burden) it is simply an abuse of the language to call the spending a tax cut.

Abt 60% of the country are freeloading liberal scumbags.

not surprising a marxist is favored for president.

also not surprising the US is following Europe and Japan down the same liberal social ****holes that now see both completely devoid of any human advancing **** with a larger aging population living off a smaller younger one-constantly voting in one more liberal scumbag after another till the entire concept of human innovation is abt as foreign as it can get.




the surprising thing is how obvious this is to an idiot like me,

but so obtuse to these morons who think they are rocket scientists or brain surgeons.

[Masterquick]

Originally Posted by Breakage

the root of everything is morons like you too fukkin blind or stupid to see what the fukk is going on.

52.6% of all US households receive a check from the government once a month.

Unlike your idiotic self and the other morons around here,
I know the solution to being poor is not the perpetually proven failure of government dependency,

maybe at some point you should come down from that liberal scumbag ivory tower where you and the beaurocrats know everything,
and actually mingle with the poor folks.

What % of those checks are directly tied to military service ? What % of those checks are directly tied to non military disabilty ? What % of those checks are directly tied to illegal immigrants ? Anyway, I can't belive a self proclaimed Royal like yourself, wasn't insured to the hilt when you lost everything. Couldn't stand to part with the premiums ? You're so transparent, I'll bet birds fly into you all the time. Go ahead, you can have the last word.

[Breakage]

0% tied to the military.

100% tied to welfare and social security.


Have to be well over 65% if we include the military.


how's that fit? 35% of the people in this country can actually get by without depending on the government.

should make the yous of the world proud.

[Breakage]

Anyway, I can't belive a self proclaimed Royal like yourself, wasn't insured to the hilt when you lost everything.

SUre makes a lot of sense,
flood insurance in a place that had never once flooded ever before.