Here Are The 47% Of The Population Who Don't Pay Federal Income Tax
 

Mitt Romney's latest campaign setback is a leaked video that shows him slagging the 47 percent of the population who, he says, will always vote for Barack Obama, because they want everything for free from the government.

The 47 percent number presumably refers to the percent of the population who don't pay Federal Income Taxes, which of course is just one kind of tax.

From the Tax Policy Center, these three pie charts show who those people are.

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http://static4.businessinsider.com/i...-453/image.png

But back to the 47 percent. There are two primary ways to pay no (or negative) federal income taxes. The first is to be poor, and the second is to be elderly. In 2011, of the 18.1 percent of American households who paid no federal tax (meaning, no federal income or payroll tax), more than half were elderly, and most of the other half were non-elderly people making below $20,000 a year. The other sliver, roughly one in 20 non-payers, were people who made more than $20,000 in household income.

The reason being poor helps is because, with a combination of tax credits (like the earned income credit and the child credit) and deductions, many people earning under $20,000 a year can zero out their overall rate. The primary reason being elderly helps is that Social Security benefits aren't taxed as income, so if all (or most) of your income comes from your monthly Social Security check, your taxable income is marginal or non-existent.

So there you have it. The poor and elderly.

Meanwhile, Jim Antle at the conservative site The Daily Caller makes another salient point: The elimination of taxes on the very poor has been GOP policy starting with Reagan, and continuing through Bush:

When Ronald Reagan signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986, he boasted, “Millions of the working poor will be dropped from the tax rolls altogether, and families will get a long-overdue break with lower rates and an almost doubled personal exemption.”

Both the initial Reagan tax cuts of 1981 and indexing income taxes to inflation in 1985 had a similar effect.

In the 1990s, the Republican-controlled Gingrich Congress passed a $500 per child tax credit that also wiped out the income tax liability of many low- to moderate-income households.

“Fully 93 percent of the tax relief in our bill goes to taxpayers with annual incomes under $100,000, 76 percent goes to taxpayers with incomes under $75,000,” then-House Ways and Means Committe Chairman Bill Archer, a Texas Republican, said at the time. “If ever there was a tax plan for America’s forgotten middle class, this is it.”

Romney's 47% Who Don't Pay Federal Taxes - Business Insider

Too easy. You are talking oranges and apples.

What is the difference: payroll and income tax | Library Answer Person

Federal income tax <> payroll tax.

Unless Duke University is not an adequate "Fact Checker" for your taste.

Am I surprised ? Not so much...

Your comment is irrelevant to the discussion. The 47% of Americans Romney referenced are the ones that pay no income tax. But the majority of them still pay tax for Social Security and Medicare. His comments are wrong.

Of the 47% he slighted, 28% of them still pay Medicare and Social Security taxes. 10% are elderly with SS being their only source of income. SS benefits are not taxed.

What dumbass thinks all the retirees are voting for Obama?

Your only real beef is with the 7%. You know, that group of high rollers flipping burgers at McDonalds. And as the article indicates, you can thank Ronald Reagan for the tax breaks for that group.

Neither of those are FEDERAL INCOME TAX. RIF.

No they are not.

But they contribute nothing to the country otherwise. You know, for thinks like national defense, roads, IRS agents, etc. The two items you *cited are (despite the fact that they are in reality both Ponzi schemes) systems in which an individual pays in and in theory receives the benefits down the road. Federal income tax is seized by the government from one group of people to give to another.

You really went a long way to leap to that conclusion, didn't you?

Nice spin move there!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit
So it was enacted under Ford, expanded under Reagan, expanded twice more under Clinton, and once more under Bush II. Everyone had a finger in that pie.

And your messiah would do well to take a lesson from that. Even though Reagan may or may not have liked the EITC, he worked with the people across the aisle to reach a compromise (a word Obama clearly has no understanding of) to create a workable peice of tax legislation that moved the country forward.

The bulk of the cited 47% are working Americans. These are not bums living on the government dime.

These are the people that make your meals, clean your house, work on your car and maintain your lawn. These are the hard working Americans that bust their ass so you and I can live comfortable lives. These are the people who you just said "contribute nothing to the country".

So what would you have the guy making minimum wage contribute to national defense? What would you tell the MILLIONS of Americans making $7.25 an hour that they need to contribute? How much more of the $290.00 per week do they owe? And really his take home is going to be closer to $260 after FICA and any state taxes, so how much more is this guy that takes home about $1,000 a month to live on supposed to pay?

What would you then have the seniors living on SS contribute?

Exactly why are you so eager to take from those with the least to give while excusing 15% capital gains taxes on billionaires?

I make my own meals, clean my own house, work on my own car, and maintain my own lawn...

They bust their asses so I can live a comfortable life?!?!? Oh, holy shit. :lolsmile:

I'd tell them to get some overtime, get a second job, start working for themselves, or get a better skillset and get a better job. Most of the people making minimum wage have just started an unskilled labor job. Hey, work harder.....learn the job.....get promoted. Most people toiling away at minimum wage jobs are kids or illegals, and even the motivated illegals work their way to better jobs. Before I was old enough to work legally, I used to mow lawns. If I can drag a lawnmower, weedeater and broom down the street, then so can others.

You can't support yourself or a family on a minimum wage job. Why is it you felt entitled to have kids and start a family if you are working a minimum wage job? I didn't do that. Why do others feel it is OK to do just that? Well, it's OK, Bill will pay for our baby's birth, the WIC, food stamps, free housing, and other goodies.....after all, Bill owes me. I work at a fast food joint.

Color me unimpressed. Those folks need to have skin in the game, just like me.

:iagree:

Somehow along the way, our society has come to the moronic expectation that people are somehow entitled to go straight to a comfortable life full of sunshine and rainbows and skip right over all of the hard work and sacrifice that it takes to get there.

Some, not all. There are still plenty of people who believe in hard work and sacrifice.

Phil, this is why no one wants to do what you call debating. I addressed each point in your previous post. You respond by ignoring most of it and taking one sentence to go on a leftist rant worthy of Alinsky's hand puppet. But I have time to kill so I'll take a swing again

The true unemployment rate is 16%. All of those people are in the no income tax category, so that has to be 34% of your 47%. Add in handicapped, disabled, elderly, etc and your "bulk" comment is bullshit.
Spoken like a true organizer, the "nobility of the laborer." These jobs are done by people who either a) want to and are willing to accept lower wages to do it or b) do not have skills to offer to the marketplace that are more valuable than the ones they are using. Like anything else, labor is subject to the laws of supply and demand. When there are a lot of people who can do the same job you do, the value of your skillset diminishes and so do your wages.

I employ roughly 85 people, the lowest salaried of which received $30,200 last year plus benefits. I bet, even given that, 2/3 of them fall in the "no income taxes" category. Your argument is complete shit.


To give you an example that you can relate to, the equivalent of telling me I need to pay people more than they are worth would be for you to toss in an extra $30,000 to the purchase price of the boat you just ordered for the sole purpose of distributing it to the people who actually built it. Bet that didn't happen.I am not in favor of the circular logic involved in taking back money that has already been handled, and therefore reduced, by the government just so they can reduce it again.
To encourage investment which generates jobs and creates a rising tide which lifts all ships instead of shooting holes in their hulls for the benefit of the Marxists who tell them how bad they are being treated.

I don't know why all the discussion. What Romney said is correct, the numbers hunt and the people living on entitlements and no taxes are mostly off the table for Romney. Where's the controversy?

JC, you can divide the population however you want, but 46.4% of the public do not contribute to the tax base, that's just a fact. I can't wait to see the surprise on many of their faces when the Bush tax cuts go away in a few months and suddenly the majority of them will be paying taxes, bet they'll change their tune then.

Debate the facts and intent of his comments all day long.

There's no denying this is hurting him.