Here is just one example found online from msnbc http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3622644...finance/t/half-us-pays-no-federal-income-tax/
It talks about federal income tax statistics from 2010
Ok, kinda what I was thinking...
So John and Jane Smith, make 100,000 together.
They have a tax liability of $10,000 (just using a flat 10% for the sake of an example, this is not a real amount), they get their standard deduction, mortgage deduction, child tax cedit, student loan credit and child care credit (all credits we can say are pretty normal for a "middle class family" ) now they have zero tax liability.
So **** and Susie Jones, make 2,000,000 in personal income (not to be confused with the profit of their business as many want to mix the two in this argument).
They have a tax liability of $180,000 (just using a flat 9% since their income is off of investments mainly), they get their standard deduction, plus a lot of other deductions, I can't even imagine, and their new tax liability is $40,000.
So the Jones didn't pay $140,000 and the Smiths didn't pay $10,000. But all that we are going to hear about so that we can "protect" that top 1-10% is that the Smith's paid 0.
It is all relative! These numbers are complete speculation, just being used to show how this all works.
The funniest, yet saddest thing is that the elite have convinced people who make 100,000-200,000 a year into believing that the poor are the ones who are causing all the problems. They try to act like they are protecting them because they are in the same boat as them. I will stand on the fact that if you are on this board 9.9 times out of 10, you are no where near wealthy (only giving that .10 to those who might own something here and be lurking) even if you have convinced yourself that because you are saving aggressively into a Roth IRA so you can retire as a millionaire that will not make you wealthy, so even the Jones in this example aren't elite, they are just making a good living. There is not moeny out there that is working for them and they are independantly wealthy. Americans are so stupid when it comes to this class warfare stuff and it DOES exist, it has always existed because the wealthy have ALWAYS made sure we fight each other down here to keep them on top.
ETA: should we even talk about the LOAN the Smith's gave the federal government all year to hold THEIR money and simply give it back to them.