In article
,
Smitty Two wrote:

"Warren Buffett is the first well-known member of the wealthy class to
face reality. He did a survey of the twenty-odd people who work in his
office ‹ secretaries, clerks, and assistants ‹ and found that he pays a
lower tax rate than any of them, even though he¹s the richest person
there. The hidden message in his statement is that the have-nots are
going to get angry about this one day, and his fellow members of the
rich class would be smart to take steps to deal with it rather than wait
for that anger to grow and overtake them.
The hidden message is that if you own the company you can tailor you pay
in ways 99% of even the most wealthy can't. The other problem I had with
old WB is that he allegedly had a couple people more than the highest
marginal rate, which is impossible.



It¹s not just wealthy individuals. Corporations also pay taxes at very
low rates. If you go back to the end of World War II, for every dollar
that Washington got from American taxpayers, it got $1.50 from
corporations. In other words, taxes on corporate profits brought 50
percent more money to Washington than taxes on individuals. In 2011, for
every dollar that the federal government gets in revenue from
individuals, it gets twenty-five cents from corporations. Corporations
have lobbied successfully to shift the tax burden from themselves to
wage earners. That¹s class warfare.

That's idiocy since the corps don't pay the taxes. Corps can either
eat the taxes (which lowers shareholder value), pass them along through
increases in prices (paid for by the customers), or lower expenses such
as laying people off (or more likely not hiring them in the first
place).


Now let¹s look at the history of the individual income tax. In the 1950s
and 1960s the top income-tax bracket for an individual was 91 percent.
That means that for every dollar an individual earned over a certain
amount ‹ let¹s just say one hundred thousand dollars ‹ he or she had to
give Uncle Sam ninety-one cents. Even in the 1970s it was still 70
percent. What is the tax rate for the richest Americans today?
Thirty-five percent. Think of it: the tax rate for the richest Americans
went from 91 percent down to 35 percent. Now, that¹s a tax cut the likes
of which has never been enjoyed by the vast majority of Americans.
So over the last forty or fifty years, the tax burden has shifted away
from corporations and the richest individuals and onto the rest of us.
Keep that in mind when you¹re angry at the government about taxes."

Nonsense. The IRS figures show that the total effective income tax
rate (including income, SS, and excise taxes) has fallen for everyone.
The lowest quintile's effective income tax rate has been cut nearly in
half from 79 to present (8.0 to 4.5). The highest quintile's has gone
down much less from 27.5 to 25.1 and the one percenters from 37% to 31.%
(about 20%).
Looking at just income taxes, the lowest quintile went from 0.0 to
NEGATIVE 6.2% rate (they are getting more back in credits than they pay
in taxes. The next lowest quintile went from 4.1% effective rate to a
-0.8%.. this BTW is entirely related to Bush tax cuts and what it did to
both brackets and eligibility for earned income and child tax credits.
If you don't cherrypick your top 1%, they as whole pay effective income
tax rates of 20%, compared to the above. The fall in rate from 79 to
present was from 21.8 to 19.8%.
BTW: Two big cuts took place under JFK and Clinton. Were those also
suspect or not?
--
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late
to work within the system, but too early to shoot
the *******s."-- Claire Wolfe