How many times do studies and stories like this have to run before people stop buying Republican BS:
But in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes — federal, state and local — than they would have paid 30 years ago. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.
Households earning more than $200,000 benefited from the largest percentage declines in total taxation as a share of income. Middle-income households benefited, too. More than 85 percent of households with earnings above $25,000 paid less in total taxes than comparable households in 1980.
Lower-income households, however, saved little or nothing. Many pay no federal income taxes, but they do pay a range of other levies, like federal payroll taxes, state sales taxes and local property taxes. Only about half of taxpaying households with incomes below $25,000 paid less in 2010.
Even the “death tax” is a fraction of what it once was.
rlrr
Yet, tea-baggers firmly believe they are paying higher taxes since Obama became President…
Villago Delenda Est
The “Death Tax” (a brainchild of that known communist, Thomas Jefferson) needs to be increased. Retroactively. So that the Walton heirs are forced to apply for food stamps.
Litlebritdifrnt
It is gospel among the teabaggers that call in to my local radio station that taxes have never been so high, it is absolute gospel. How dare the New York Times come in here with their fancy “facts”. This is what is wrong with the entire republican party, they never let the facts get in the way of their story line.
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
The teatards also believed Kkkarl Rove’s “math” that guaranteed a Rmoney landslide three weeks ago.
Numbers, how do they work?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Ha I see someone already beat me to it.
catclub
“How many times do studies and stories like this have to run”
Should I tell you about countable infinities and uncountable infinities?
The answer is blowing in he wind?
heck they also think taxes have gone up over the past 4 years.
(They WILL go up, for investment income, for those with income
over $250k, as part of PPACA, which has already passed.)
reflectionephemeral
The resentment of taxation follows from the resentment of government, at least when it’s perceived to help Them instead of Us.
The Southern Strategy began as a tactical gambit, but it’s now the alpha & omega of GOP policy & rhetoric.
BGinCHI
Isn’t one of the tenets of National Socialism that you have to control what everyone is outraged about? Once you make your people believe they are victims and that the oppression is targeting them, you have a ripe bunch for the picking.
That’s the GOP ethos.
Villago Delenda Est
@reflectionephemeral:
This.
JoeShabadoo
Never use death tax even in sarcasm quotes. Estate becoming death would be a huge victory to everyone who wants to demonize all taxes.
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
Furthermore, they are paying higher taxes so that “those people” (you know, the 47%, the moochers, the blahs, the wetbacks, the sluts, the DFHs) don’t have to work for a living, but get Tbones delivered and cooked up personally by Obambi, who is obviously as ubiquitous as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, but on a 24/7/365 basis. PAR-TAY, homeboys!
BarbCat
If it’s in the New York Pravda, it might as come from Saul Alinsky’s lips. It double proves their point.
? Martin
Taxes paid to a black man are like 10x more economically damaging and painful than taxes paid to a white man.
Onihanzo
Speaking of Republican sturm und drang, here’s the granddaddy of the Tea Party movement losing his shit on air about the ol’ Bush-devastated-our-economy-and-we’re-still-recovering “switcheroo”. Or something.
Culture of Truth
I was watching tv yesterday (the Ed Show, maybe) and this woman was on, a small business owner, good for her, said, “I’m having hard time, with all…these.. taxes” and I’m thinking you mean.. the.. ones.. Obama.. CUT!?
Brachiator
Unfortunately, it’s not just Republican BS.
I’ve seen couples get a refund of all their federal income taxes still complain that their taxes are too high because they did not get a refund of their Social Security taxes as well. Math is hard.
But this article helps tremendously in putting a lie to the GOP BS that Democrats are nothing but tax and spend moocher feeders.
This stuff needs to be widely distributed.
NonyNony
@Brachiator:
That’s not “math is hard” that’s “paying for stuff – how does THAT happen”.
I have honestly had “conversations” with people where the sentences “Why should we have to pay taxes to pay for roads? The government should be paying for that.” are uttered.
When you’re fighting that kind of mentality, I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do.
Smiling Mortician
@NonyNony:
Have a serious talk with every high-school civics teacher in the country?
NonyNony
@Smiling Mortician:
Have you ever attended a school board meeting where outraged parents show up screaming about the lies that their kid is learning in school and how dare the teachers teach such horrible things like, oh, that everything about America isn’t awesome?
I have. I know why High School government classes suck so much now and it’s because the parents of High School students far more than it is because of the teachers.
Bulworth
“Well, some people say we’re overtaxed…some people say we’re not. We’re just airing both sides of the debate.”
feebog
Just for the halibut, I pulled out my 1999 tax return the other day. The rate on my taxable income (not gross) was 19.88%. My 2010 rate was 16.34%. And that was on a considerably larger taxable income. I figure my taxes will go up about $3500 a year if we go over the fiscal cliff.
Geeno
@Smiling Mortician: Do they still teach civics?
Wouldn’t that be some kind of union/communist indoctrination?
HW3
Bring on the cliff….
The idea that reducing income would somehow result in deficit reduction is nothing but fairy dust and unicorn farts.
Xecky Gilchrist
Where’s redshirt complaining that we have to do what the Republicans want or they’ll start obstructing everything saying the Democrats raised taxes?
acallidryas
Forget the New York Times and their “facts,” how can people not believe their own eyes? I’m jealous of these Republicans and Tea Partiers who don’t know when their taxes have gone up or down. I for damn sure realized it when my paycheck went up by $12 after the first round of stimulus. It was great!
Biff Longbotham
Fewer than 30 comments so far? Shoulda written about bike lanes, bro.
bemused
Years of Frank Luntz/GOP brainwashing has the average joe Republican voter so terrified about debt and deficits, they think “entitlements” are responsible and have to be “seriously” dealt with. They don’t really mean cuts for themselves but that’s another topic. What they don’t get is that the Republican party doesn’t give a hoot about debt or deficits, they just want to get their hands on SS/Medicare and so on, privatize and profit.
I’m just starting to read up on the Fix the Debt group. CEO David Cote, Honeywell isn’t even the least bit subtle. He said the effective tax rate on corporations should be zero and we have a problem with entitlements…Medicare, Medicaid…”If we could actually develop a four trillion dollar credible market plan that would cause everyone out there to say, wow, we can govern again”.
I don’t know if Cote or any of the other CEO’s in Fix the Debt have been on Fox News, they’ve been making the rounds on other news channels, but doesn’t that even raise a little suspicion in Foxbots on SS/Medicare that somethin’ don’t smell right?
Someguy
So why are we pushing for a middle class tax cut? Has it occurred to any of you that Obama is selling you out by pushing for it?
He doesn’t have to cut taxes. He’s not running for re-election. All he needs to do is to sit tight, and in addition to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the Alternative Minimum Tax patch will expire. When it does, around 30 million of the highest paid earners in the U.S. will have to pay 28% on their tax from dollar one. The conservatives get the flat tax they want, and the rest of us who don’t believe in a flat earth will get the revenue that’s needed to keep the government running.
Drive off the cliff. It won’t hurt anybody except for the wealthier, and a 28% rate in reality isn’t even high as the marginal tax rates were pre-Bush.
Brachiator
@acallidryas:
To some people, it always feels like they are paying more in taxes.
For some taxpayers in California in the past few years, for example, even though their federal taxes may have decreased, their state taxes went up. These people just look at their total refund, see that it is “too small” or “less than last year,” and discount the separate components.
Yeah, the GOP Tea Party hypnosis plays a part for many, but people are just plain strange when it comes to their taxes. They break out into a sweat, go nuts, and often just can’t think straight.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Villago Delenda Est:
Fixed for maximum irony.
Brachiator
@Someguy:
Sweet boneless Jesus, you have no idea what you are talkng about. None.
AMT doesn’t just affect the highest paid earners. It got fucked up because it has never been indexed for inflation This is one of the reasons why it has to be patched every freaking year. Oh, yeah, the Bush tax cuts exposed more middle income people to the AMT as well. This was a nasty side effect that Congress was warned about, but they plowed ahead anyway.
If it is not patched again, the AMT exemption amount for married couples filing a joint return reverts to $45,000. This ain’t a mountain of money, and sure is not targeting the wealthiest taxpayers.
And oh, yeah, if the AMT is not patched, middle income earners hit by it will see their taxes jump up in 2012, not 2013. Legislation to address this has been sitting on the table since early November, at least, but is being held hostage to the other Fiscal Cliff BS.
And as usual, people keep discounting the fact that “sitting tight and doing nothing” will see huge reductions in tax benefits that primarily benefit the working poor, such as the Earned Income Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit.
On this issue, there is more than enough ignorance to go around.
Someguy
@Brachiator:
So have the IRS exercise Executive Branch Ministerial Discretion (Unitary Executive Rawks!) and waive collection of taxes on people who make less than 50th percentile wages under the AMT. If you’re in the top half, fuck you, you got yours already, you pay more. It’s time those who have more, pay more, instead of ducking out.
Besides, tax the millionaires and billionaires all you want, it’s not enough revenue to fix the problem.
Brachiator
@Someguy:
You really should just stop.
I believe that millionaires and billionaires should be tax up the yin yang. On the other hand, a lot of the supposed debt and deficit problem is Village smoke and mirrors bullshit.
Calouste
@Villago Delenda Est:
If the 1% were students of history, which they aren’t, they would have noticed that the alternative to raising the death tax sometimes is that it is applied more frequently.
Badtux
Uhm, just to clarify, I’ve done the numbers. The average middle class household today does pay more in taxes than in 1955. Sales taxes are higher, property taxes are higher, payroll taxes are higher, income taxes are lower but income taxes are only one tax among the many that the middle class pays. The only people paying less taxes are the rich and corporations (which accounted for 40% of income taxes in 1955, and under 10% today) — so much less in taxes that tax collections as a percentage of GDP are lower than in 1955.
So when the Tea Party morons whine about “Taxes are too high!” they do have at least a *little* point — taxes *are* too high, on the middle class. Until the tax burden is shifted back onto the rich and corporations as was true in 1955, we will continue to have historically low tax collections while at the same time continuing to tax the middle class higher than they were historically taxed.
catclub
@Brachiator: I have never looked closely at the AMT, but my understanding is that it kicks in when you have LOTS of deductions. If you have some
relatively normal amount of deductions, it is irrelevant.
So for starters, anyone who only uses the standard deduction, would NEVER be hit by AMT (even unpatched). Correct?
Brachiator
@catclub:
Deductions can do it, but it doesn’t have to be an abnormal or excessive amount. And some people can be thrown into AMT because they have 4 or more kids. Even if they only take the Standard Deduction.
And this is the problem. AMT was a response to the fact that in 1969 about 155 super rich households had not paid any federal income tax. Just 155 households.
Since then, some households with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 can be thrown into AMT because of some fairly trivial deductions and exemptions.
Tax law should never be written by amateurs. Unfortunately, that’s what we got in Washington.
@Badtux:
Ironic, isn’t it, that the Tea Party morons voted for Romney and Ryan when their proposals would have raised more taxes on the backs of the middle class.
sherparick
The complaints about taxes stand in for the complaint about real median income falling for most people since the late 1990s. Although inflation has been low, wage and salary increases have bave been even lower, especially over the last five years. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/11/real-median-household-income-in-the-21st-century/
Hence people feel squeezed, and more suseptible to resentment signals sent out on racial, tribal, and regional lines.
rikyrah
some folks like to cling to the stupid, Cole.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
There’s a Democrat in the White House! Taxes must have been raised because they’re the tax and spend party! That stereotype cannot not be true!
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@Badtux:
The thing that always got me about the Tea Party is that their aggression is so misplaced. You talk to them and almost all of their actual complaints are about local government and almost all that they hold sacred are federal programs.
It doesn’t help that some smart people don’t understand basic tax policy or that people don’t know their economic history.
Mnemosyne
@sherparick:
That’s what I was thinking, too, though I didn’t have the stats — a lot of the “tax rebellion” stuff started happening about 4 or 5 years after the numbers show that wages started stagnating. If you’re still making the same amount of money every year despite inflation, you’re going to feel the pinch even if taxes are objectively taking a smaller percentage than they used to.