Kerry Picket @ The Washington Times:
The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore has just come out with a new book titled Who’s the Fairest of Them All?: The Truth about Opportunity, Taxes, and Wealth in America and he reveals some interesting information about how much the top ten percent of income earners in the United States pay in federal income taxes as opposed to any other industrialized nation in the world.
According to Moore, these earners pay almost half (45 percent) of the country’s total taxes. This conclusion flies in the face of the liberal concept that top earners in the U.S. are not paying their “fair share” in taxes. Moore explains:
“The United States is actually more dependent on rich people to pay taxes than even many of the more socialized economies of Europe. According to the Tax Foundation, the United States gets 45 percent of its total taxes from the top 10 percent of tax filers, whereas the international average in industrialized nations is 32 percent. America’s rich carry a larger share of the tax burden than do the rich in Belgium (25 percent), Germany (31 percent), France (28 percent), and even Sweden (27 percent).”
Moore also delves into what the “47 percent” of America actually pays and receives from the federal government and that the perception that the middle class is shrinking is a myth. In fact, the actual trend has been an upward mobility and a better standard of living for the middle class and lower income earners in the last 25 years.
The Heritage Foundation has been arguing these facts for years. Consider what happened each time the U.S. reduced the tax rate significantly:
Is it so odd that those who have a much larger share of total wealth and income in any given year would pay a proportionally larger share of total taxes?
@Greg:
No, Greg, it’s not odd. What is odd is that a certain portion of the population is decrying the proportionately larger share of income, and taxes, that the high income earners are gathering in and paying in, and saying that it’s still much too small.
What’s fair, Greg?
How much more should the highest income earners pay?
Will it ever be enough so that the leftists will stop stirring up jealousy and envy between the classes?
Resentment, envy, jealousy, and, in a way, revenge, are all propagated by the leftist politicians of those more fortunate, those who’ve worked harder, or those more talented, than others. Thank God most of the population doesn’t buy into the brainwashing wealth envy Obama’s compatriots dish out.
The top bracket rates are presently at historical lows. They were far higher during long periods when the U.S. economy was rapidly growing and the middle class was rapidly expanding.
So, why would anyone believe that these historically low rates must be pushed lower still, in order for the economy to recover more quickly and for general prosperity to increase? Particularly in light of the fact that deficits and the growing debt are posing a serious threat to our long-term security?
Greg, you and your fellow travellers constantly omit the fact that the current top rate is paid by a great many more people than the punitive rates from the distant past. Very few people were subject to those high tax rates of yore. Re-imposing them as a new tax bracket that started at $millions AGI would of course raise very little revenue, and also have little more than punitive effect on a small number of people. In contrast, high rates that affect millions of people have quite predictable negative effects. So please, take a look at the tax systems in Canada, France, or the other social democracies you’d like us to follow as examples. What you’ll find is that their top tax rates are actually comparable to ours (when you include state/provincial taxes) currently. That’s right, a Canadian pays about the same as a Californian or New Yorker today, and a Frenchman will pay about the same even after Hollande’s tax hike (from 41% to 45% for the people I’m talking about). The US will be almost in a league of it’s own in 2013, with rates in the high 50s, comparable only to a few socialist countries (e.g. Sweden at 56%). The reality is that those social democracies have top tax rates that kick in at much lower income levels than ours does. Let’s see how much support the Democrats get from those urban liberals if they begin seeing the rates they call for imposed on themselves. Is Hollande’s 75% top rate at all relevant to the discussion? Almost no one will pay it – the real dirty work will be done by clobbering the professional classes and small businesses with the hike on the lower bracket. So please, spare us the misleading nostalgia.
P.S. having hit the wall on income taxation, virtually all of those social democracies turned to VATs to get their governments to 50% of GDP. I’d like to see the Democrats float that idea. Let’s see how much government people want after they figure out that they themselves are going to have to pay the bills.
P.P.S. And despite all of that, those countries are still having to borrow to fuel their spending. They’ve pushed their productive citizens to the wall, then grabbed what then can from consumption, and it’s still not enough. It’s never enough.
@Greg:
Rates are not the only thing that generate revenue. If it was that simple, why was GE’s tax return 57,000 pages. If it were just rates, the tax form would be half a page long. There are other ways to generate revenue. One of them is to have congress quit giving out exemptions to their buddies. Both parties are guilt of this and it needs to be stopped.
A simpler tax code with lower rates would be far better than a trumped up tax code that makes you feel the rich are getting punished for being successful.