Or just like nearly 50 percent of all taxpayers.
Not this crap again:
The ‘50 percent pay no tax’ fraud, Part II
1:42 pm February 24, 2009, by Jay
I’ve dealt with this claim before, pointing out that the actual number of taxable units (households and individuals) that earn enough to file tax forms but pay no federal income tax is actually 38 percent, not 50 percent. (Source: Factcheck.org)
But let’s add some context to the discussion. First of all, as the Tax Foundation points out, the relatively large percentage of non-income-tax payers is a direct consequence of the Bush tax cuts that conservatives laud in other contexts. As the foundation pointed out in 2004, the number of zero-tax filers “was 29 million in 2000, and it will be 44 million in 2004, a 50 percent increase.” Again, it attributes that change to the Bush administration.
And of course, income taxes are just one of several forms of federal taxation — you’ve got gasoline taxes, payroll taxes, etc. The Congressional Budget Office has analyzed total effective federal tax rates by income, and comes up with the following (2005 numbers):
—————-Average income ————Effective fed tax rate
Lowest 20 percent………$15,900 ……………………4.3 percent
Second 20 percent…….. $37,400…………………… 9.9 percent
Middle 20 percent……….$58,500………………….. 14.2 percent
Fourth 20 percent……….,$85,200………………….. 17.4 percent
Top 20 percent…………..$231.300…………………..25.5 percent
Top 1 percent…………..$1,558,500………………….31.2 percent
And who are the people who don’t pay federal income taxes? Again, according to the Tax Foundation:
“Broadly speaking, the 44 million zero-tax filers are: low-income, young, female-headed households, part-time workers, and beneficiaries of the $1,000 per-child tax credit.
The 44 million zero-tax filers will be largely low-income. Indeed, 75 percent of will earn less than $20,000 per year and 97 percent will earn less than $40,000. Fewer than 1 percent will earn more than $75,000 per year – a group comprised largely of business owners whose tax liabilities will be erased due to business losses, carry-overs from prior year AMT payments, or foreign tax credits.
Zero-tax filers in 2004 will be overwhelmingly young. Looking at the age of the primary breadwinner on these tax returns, only 22 percent are 45 years old or older. More than one-third (36 percent) are younger than age 25, and 56 percent are younger than age 35. Interestingly, there is a large cluster of households (22.4 percent) where the principal wage earner is between the ages of 35 and 44. Most likely, these are modest-income families who are benefitting most from the increased value of the child credit to $1,000.
The racial or ethnic composition of the 44 million zero-tax filers will roughly mirror the demographics of American tax filers as a whole. For example, white Americans are 83 percent of total taxpayers, and the percentage of zero-tax filers who are white is 79 percent. African Americans are roughly 13 percent of total taxpayers and 17 percent of zero-tax filers. Asian Americans comprise 3.6 percent of total taxpayers and 3.4 percent of zero-tax filers.”
In general, then, those who don’t pay federal income taxes tend to be young families with children, often headed by a single mother, where the head of household has a job and is trying to make ends meet on a modest income. The racial background of that population largely mirrors that of the country at large.
You dont want to raise taxes on the rich but you want to raise taxes on single parents? Some christian you are
