OMB: Top 20% pay 95% of taxes, middle class 'single digits'

Washington Examiner ^ | 10/27/17 | Paul Bedard

[rb22982]

So they’re paying single digits?

Yes, after deductions, 401k deferrals, and child tax credits, you don't end up paying but about $5-$10k at $120k/yr. My effective tax rate was 14% last year (no kids, but married) on about $220k. This year will be about 16% and next year about 18% on ~$300k. If we had kids it'be a couple points less.

[rb22982]

Bit over $100k..maybe $115-$125k +-

[Pollard]

didn’t realize. I’ve never made over $40k and that was just one year with a helluva lot of 80 hour work weeks. Normally it’s been about $25-30k. Blue collar ‘wages’ have gone up maybe 10-20% over the last few decades. Meanwhile the price of most everything doubled or tripled. Guess I should have stayed up north or moved back and gone union. My dad did ok being blue collar, non union but that was the good old days. Then again, he couldn’t afford to send any of us to college so...

[rb22982]

Area worked hasn’t been as important as type of job, on average. Those # I gave wouldn’t have included FICA, state, property taxes nor sales tax.

[Crucial]

How much is this due to the shrinkage of the Middle Class during the ObamaCare years?

[Crucial]

A family of four or five today needs to make at least 75k to feel secure in some of the lowest income parts of the country.

[KC Burke]

Second to just honest work effort is who you know and are related to if you stay in the same industry as your connections.

I benefitted initially in my construction industry career because my father was a known and respected middle level manager and for a while a small business owner. I ended up doing business with sons of my dad’s friends as well as others. Those connections developed into relationships of trust and value that were a great advantage. I could have ended my career in the middle percentile but that early advantage allowed me to advance in a way that would never have happened if I had switched industries.

Income bracket is often a chance decision or turn of events just coupled with ALWAYS showing up.

[boomstick]

I used to agree, but I have come to a different view. I don’t want the FedGov involved *at* all with monitoring or taxing economic activity *within* the US borders. There should be no internal revenue ‘service’— go back to tariffs on international trade as the source of Federal Govt tax revenue. No income tax, no payroll tax, no *Federal* sales/consumption tax.

[amnestynone]

And as long as they are knocking down our borders, smearing us with the media and spending all of the money both of these elitists Democrats and Republicans alike need to pay more taxes not less. When they start listening to the rest of us then maybe we can lower their taxes, but not until then.

[minnesota_bound]

I know my tax on my pay is around 43%
I wish the rich would pay my taxes for me : )

[lightman]

“Moochelle, my belle, my honey-—I shrunk the middle class!”

[fireman15]

The way the article is worded... I believe it is saying the top 20% of people who pay income tax pay 95% of the tax. But only about half of the population pays any income tax. So to me the article is really saying that 10% of the people in the country are paying 95% of the income tax. I would speculate that many of those who post here are within that 10%. As far as I am concerned the freeloaders who with government assistance are living rent free to be in this country and are paying no income tax and own no property should not be allowed to vote to give themselves more of the money taken from the productive people in our society.