[VeniVidiVici]

Sri, link is http://www.cbpp.org/eic2002/factseic-2002.pdf

[bandleader]

"The RATS"only believe in TAX-CUTS for those who don't pay Taxes!!Is This A Surprise???

[buffyt]

My kids only make a few hundred dollars a year, work for about $6.00 an hour, and neither of them gets any tax cuts or tax breaks or tax credits for low income. My daughter works at Limited part time and my son works at Target part time. They take all the usual taxes out of their checks and they do not get tax refunds. They each have a few thousand dollars in their college savings accounts, but no huge amount of money that should offset such a low paycheck. My daughter is always shocked at how much they take out of her paycheck. She only has a few hundred dollars in her savings account this year.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[templar]

also not figured into the equation is the amount of tax funded services the 'poor' recieve.

[AndyTheBear]

Why aren't we beating the dems over the head with this?

It seems you have a good point, but trying to use it in a debate with the Rats would get you labled as someone who wanted to take these benefits away. Reality is not relevant to Rat arguments.

[aristeides]

I think this is part of the reason why the RATs' plan -- as announced by Pelosi -- did not include a payroll tax holiday. Just that $300 per person "rebate," for everybody, including the poor, whether they pay taxes or not.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting this. I have bookmarked it.

[Bahbah]

This is a very useful post. I am copying it to my personal archive for use in battle. Thanks.

[valkyrieanne]

Thanks for posting this. Note that this document also completely undercuts a big argument for vouchers - that people deserve vouchers because "their tax money should be returned to them." Guess what - those of lower incomes (the only ones to qualify for state voucher programs) *don't pay taxes.* They don't pay federal taxes but instead get EITC "refunds" (i.e. welfare payments.) Nor do they pay property taxes (especially if they are in federally- or state-subsidized housing) and they often pay little state tax as well.

[3catsanadog]

Payroll Tax - does that refer to federal withholding or to Social Security/Medicare? Or both?

[ancient_geezer]

it seems to me that not only do people that qualify under the table in the document pay very little, if any, income tax, they also pay very little if any payroll tax!

Am my assumption wrong here?

Nope:

 

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1545&from=4&sequence=0  

Table 1. Preliminary Estimates of Effective Tax Rates by Income Category, 1977-1995 and Projected for 1999
Income Category	1977	1979	1981	1983	1985	1987	1989	1991	1993	1995	Projected 1999
Effective Individual Income Tax Rate (In percent)[Income tax plus EIC]
Lowest Quintile	-0.6	-0.8	-0.2	-0.5	-0.2	-1.3	-1.9	-2.9	-3.4	-5.6	-6.8
Second Quintile	3.6	3.9	4.6	3.5	3.9	3.2	3.3	2.7	1.8	1.8	0.9
Middle Quintile	7.1	7.5	8.3	6.8	6.8	6.1	6.5	6.3	5.9	6.1	5.4
Fourth Quintile	9.7	10.4	11.3	9.5	9.3	8.7	8.9	8.7	8.5	8.7	8.4
Highest Quintile	15.8	16.3	17.1	14.5	14.3	15.1	15.1	14.8	15.5	16.2	16.1
All Families	11.1	11.6	12.6	10.7	10.7	10.8	10.9	10.5	10.9	11.3	11.1
Top 10 Percent	17.6	18.0	18.7	15.9	15.6	16.9	16.6	16.3	17.4	18.2	18.0
Top 5 Percent	19.3	19.7	20.0	17.1	16.8	18.5	18.0	17.6	19.3	20.0	19.6
Top 1 Percent	23.1	22.6	22.0	19.3	18.7	20.9	19.7	19.9	22.8	23.4	22.2
Effective Total Federal Tax Rate (In percent)[includes payroll taxes]
Lowest Quintile	8.7	8.4	8.0	8.5	10.2	9.0	8.8	7.9	7.8	6.0	4.6
Second Quintile	14.7	14.9	15.0	14.2	15.5	15.2	15.3	15.1	14.3	14.6	13.7
Middle Quintile	18.5	19.2	19.5	18.2	18.8	18.5	18.9	18.9	19.1	19.7	18.9
Fourth Quintile	20.9	22.1	22.9	21.0	21.3	21.2	21.5	21.6	22.0	22.5	22.2
Highest Quintile	28.2	28.5	27.9	24.6	24.5	26.4	25.9	26.2	27.6	29.6	29.1
All Families	22.8	23.4	23.5	21.4	21.8	22.6	22.5	22.6	23.5	24.7	24.2
Top 10 Percent	30.7	30.5	29.0	25.2	25.1	27.6	26.8	27.2	29.0	31.3	30.6
Top 5 Percent	33.4	32.6	30.1	25.7	25.5	28.5	27.4	27.9	30.2	33.0	31.8
Top 1 Percent	39.7	37.3	31.7	26.9	26.2	30.2	28.1	29.1	32.5	36.5	34.4
SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.
NOTES:Pretax family income is the sum of wages, salaries, self-employment income, rents, taxable and nontaxable interest, dividends, realized capital gains, and all cash transfer payments. Income also includes the corporate income tax and the employer share of Social Security and federal unemployment insurance payroll taxes. For purposes of ranking by adjusted family income, income for each family is divided by the poverty threshold for a family of that size. Quintiles contain equal numbers of people. Families with zero or negative income are excluded from the lowest income category but are included in the total.
Individual income taxes are distributed directly to families paying those taxes. Payroll taxes are distributed to families paying those taxes directly, or indirectly through their employers. Federal excise taxes are distributed to families according to their consumption of the taxed good or service. Corporate income taxes are distributed to families according to their share of capital income.