Total Federal Taxes -- Income, FICA, Corporate

http://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/how-much-do-americans-pay-in-federal-taxes

Here are the income quintiles for the US ... take the 320ish million people and divide into 5 groups by income. Each group will have about 6.5 million people in it (6.5 x 5 = "32") the bottom of the first quintile is 0 and the top is $21K. The bottom of the next is $21K and the top is $41K --- $68K, $112K, the top starts at $112 and the top is the highest income person in the US for that year.

*** Note, the right 5 columns are ALL relative to the top quintile since it is a HUGE income range.

Points to be taken away from this:

• No matter how you slice it, people that make less than $100K really don't pay that much in FEDERAL taxes as a % 
• Remember ... state, property, gas, sales, hotel, license fees, cigarette, liquor, etc, etc are NOT included here! It is still WAY short of "total tax". 
• Taxes on business are paid by the customers, investors and workers of that business! MOSTLY by the customers -- because if they can't pass the tax along, they go out of business. 
• It's pretty easy to see how a "flat tax" could work. If everyone paid "17-20%" in taxes and there were no corporate taxes, we would increase tax revenue, keep business in the country, increase incentives for old guys like me to work and maybe best of all, get out of the idea that the bottom 3 quintiles can get added benefits and have the top pay for it! 

 Good article overall and not that long. 

Law, Morality, Flat Tax

BO's unilateral action creates a precedent. In the SCOTUS, conservative judges have tended to be very reticent to undo precedent -- seeing it as only slightly more egregious that that original usurpation of the Constitution that created the precedent. Roe V Wade being the standard example.

The expected conservative opinion on BO's action would be that a conservative president ought not do the same thing -- wrong is wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right. However, I think we can all agree that BO has created a template here that WILL be re-used by left leaning presidents. After a midterm election, with a lame duck congress, decree some major action and have two years for it to become the de-facto law of the land before anyone really has a shot at changing it.

I'd argue, as I think many conservative / libertarians would, that our existing "progressive" tax system is one of the greatest abuses of freedom to date in the US. Private property is the cornerstone of freedom, and while to the founders, that primarily meant land, in the modern world it is investment and income. ANY suspension of equal protection is noxious to freedom, the equal protection attack on private property, has been and continues to be devastating.

So conservatives have a dilemma. The evil genie of monarchical decree, once released, is certain to be used again and again by the freedom destroying forces of collectivism and "progressivism"  as a powerful nuclear tool doing maximum damage to the fabric of the nation. Do we unilaterally disarm, or make use of this force to attempt good?

Imagine a Flat Tax, of say "25%" that replaced all other taxes including FICA. Income tax forms would be on a post card. ALL people would pay the same rate on ALL income.  If put in place in the same way that BO has just done, there would be a FULL THREE YEARS (providing the president made it retroactive when he decreed it), since even after the next election, the new president / congress would not take office until it was too late to enact anything for the subsequent election year taxes. By that time, the unholy alliance between accountants / lawyers / tax preparers and the IRS would have been broken -- those folks would have been forced to find new work. Their legions of tax code svengalis adding and modifying loopholes like demons in Dante's Hell would have moved on.

Yes, such change is likely to cause havoc in the economy, but make no mistake, since the genie is now released, we all have to expect changes as egregious and worse after every midterm election. In fact, taking the bull by the horns and going big fairly early may allow conservatives a chance to tilt the table in the favor of the nation.

We owe it to the future of America to give this serious thought. It is one of the few remaining ways I can see that we can turn the tide before the last wisps of inadequate restraint on Leviathan are fully released.

How Taxes Actually Work

Political Diary - WSJ.com

This is VERY short and VERY important to read. In case you are REALLY lazy:

New data from the IRS will be out in a few weeks on who pays how much
in taxes. My contacts at the Treasury Department tell me that for the
first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers
will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will
account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will
have paid just 3%.

Any questions? The top 50% pay 97% of taxes. BO wants them to pay MORE?? Nice idea, but how likely is that really? How did they get to be in the top 50%? By being idiots? They MIGHT be there because they understand the time value of money and the value of their own time and will make different decisions if you increase their tax burden. Gee, didn't tax rates used to be higher? Let's go back and look at some historical data:

Economist Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University has shown that in 1970,
when the highest tax rate was 70%, the top 1% shouldered 16.7% of the
income tax burden. Today the top tax rate is 35% and the same class of
taxpayers pays a whopping 39% of the burden. The worst way to "soak the
rich," Mr. Hubbard finds, is to raise tax rates.

Hmm, people of some level of intelligence CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR due to the environment!! That is nearly impossible for lefty's like BO to figure out, since they don't believe in merit (other than their own of course!). They think that the folks with money either just "got lucky", or "took it from someone else". In that sort of a model, there is a fixed amount of "wealth" to be moved around and it can't be grown and it can't be shrunk. That is an interesting model, but it is completely wrong. It is VERY easy to destroy the economy, and "reasonably possible" to grow it -- we know enough of how it works to have a 100% chance of being able to slow it down or stop it, and a better than 50/50 chance of making it grow.

Looks like BO doesn't understand any of the above. Guess he just isn't "a numbers guy".