Majority of Americans OK With Taxes They Pay, Want Wealthy to Pay More

N 20, 2012 AT 06:30 PM PST
Majority of Americans okay with the taxes they pay, want wealthy to pay more
byJoan McCarter

(Pew Research Center)

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist might rule Republicans, but he's way off base.
Americans feel pretty good about their tax bills. You wouldn't know it from all the talk in Washington and on the campaign trail about overhauling the tax code, slashing rates on personal income, or creating a flatter tax system.
They feel so pleased, in fact, that a slight majority of Americans – 52 percent – think they pay the right amount of taxes, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. The number of people who feel that they pay more than their fair share of taxes dropped from 55 percent in 2000 to 38 percent in 2011. It’s a sentiment so popular across party lines that it prompted the Pew Research Center to write: “Very few Republicans, Democrats, or independents cite the amount they themselves pay as their chief complaint.” [...]

Overwhelmingly, Democrats surveyed by Pew are most irritated by the perception that the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes. Seventy-two percent of them cited it as the most irksome quirk of the U.S. tax system, shared by 38 percent of Republicans: a theme that President Obama seems to be capitalizing on as income inequality becomes one of the major themes of his re-election strategy.

Getting this right and bringing some sanity back to the tax code isn't just good politics, it's essential policy.

Tax revenues now represent just 14.4 percent of the GDP, according to the Office of Management and Budget, compared to a high of 20.6 percent in 2000. Over the past 25 years, the number of individual tax breaks known as tax expenditures has ballooned, giving people deductions on everything from mortgage interest and charitable donations to state and local taxes. In fiscal year 2011, tax expenditures cost the federal government $1.1 trillion, or 7.6 percent of the GDP, compared to 1976 when they accounted for just 4.2 percent of the GDP.
The nation can't afford the Bush tax code anymore, and most of America (Norquist and his minions aside) get that.

I understand that facts upset SiriuslyWrong but I cant help posting them. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Havakasha

I understand that facts upset SiriuslyWrong but I cant help posting them. :)

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Only you would call a survey "facts".

And I recall a quote from you, "dummy, no one wants to pay more taxes". You used it as justification to have a tax accountant.

I stand strongly behind the rights of the accounting profession to participate in the free enterprise system and believe in their right to make a good iving. Shame on you, you marxist. lol

The fact is that "survey" after survey demonstrates that the majority of people would like the wealthy to pay their fair share. You know like what they paid under Reagan. That is a FACT.

Yes, No one WANTS to pay taxes, but some of us feel its our patriotic duty to do so and we
expect that it is administered in a fair and equal manner. I think its clear that these last
years have seen Congress skew the rates to help themselves as well as their favored wealthy lobbyist and supporters.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Havakasha

I stand strongly for the accounting profession and i am defintitely for their free enterprise rights.
Shame on you. lol

The fact is that "survey" after survey demonstrates that the majority of people would like the wealthy to pay their fair share. You know like what they paid under Reagan. That is a FACT.

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Yeap, surveys and polls are facts.

The wealthy pay a lot already - the top 1% pay over 36% of all income taxes. That's a certifiable fact - a US government statistic.

http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

Here are a bunch of sources: http://search.yahoo.com/search?type=...ernment+source

Its just a FACT that survey after survey shows that the American people believe
rising inequality is an important matter and one that could be partially resolved
by bringing the upper income tax bracket back to Reagan rates.

Romney agrees with you. The rich pay way too much. Lmfao.
15% is exorbitant (excuse me, 13.9% in 2010)
Stop playing around with statistics. You arent fooling anyone.



Mitt Romney is running on an 'I'm rich, so elect me' platform—and Karl Rove thinks it's brilliant
byJed Lewison

Mitt Romney's South Carolina concession speech

Mitt Romney, during his bitter concession speech on Saturday night, not only confusing questions about his record at Bain with a "front assault on free enterprise," but effectively saying that Republicans should support him because he's rich.
When my -- when my opponents attack success and free enterprise, they're not only attacking me, they're attacking every person who dreams of a better future, he's attacking you. I will support you. I will help you have a better future. I will make sure that America is a place of opportunity for all.
I'm passionate -- I'm passionate about our economic liberty because I have witnessed our free enterprise system as it rewards the hard work of many and creates prosperity for all in this great country. And over the past few weeks we have seen a frontal assault on free enterprise. We expected this from President Obama. We didn't anticipate some Republicans would join him. That's a mistake for our party and for our nation. Ours is the party of free enterprise and free markets and consumer choice.

The Republican Party doesn't demonize prosperity. We celebrate success in our party.

And Karl Rove loves the argument, praising Romney for having said the same thing during Thursday's debate:

His best moment on Thursday night was when he said, I didn't inherit this money, I made it my myself, and I'm not going to apologize for it, and anybody who attacks me is attacking the free enterprise system. And I thought that was a very strong moment for him.
Of course, all this talk about free enterprise is nonsense, and voters know it. Hell, even Mitt Romney knows it. If he really believed that voters would blindly "celebrate success" without caring how he achieved that success, he'd have released his tax returns long ago—and he'd have answered the questions he's gotten about how Bain made it's money. And that's one of the reasons his campaign is struggling: one of his core arguments is bullshit, and he knows it.

I have been trying to tell you were SeriouslyWrong. :)


TUE JAN 24, 2012 AT 11:10 AM PST
On day of Mitt Romney's tax release, poll finds widespread support for raising taxes on the 1%
byLaura Clawson

Four in ten Republicans want to raise Mitt Romney's taxes. If elected, Romney would lower them.
Among the 99.9 percent of us who don't get more than $20 million a year without working and have Cayman Islands and Swiss bank accounts, the idea that people in the 0.1 percent, like Mitt Romney, should pay more than 14 percent taxes is pretty popular, a New York Times/CBS News poll finds:
A little more than half say the tax rate they pay is about right, while about 4 in 10 say they pay more than their fair share. Nearly 7 in 10 Democrats say wealthy Americans pay less than their fair share in taxes, while Republicans are divided.
About 4 in 10 Republicans say that the rich pay less than their fair share, and about the same number say the amount wealthy people pay is about right. Nearly 2 in 10 Republicans say the rich pay more than their fair share.

And 58 percent of independents also say the rich are not contributing their fair share to the nation’s coffers.

The Times highlights the partisan divide, but when you have nearly 7 in 10 Democrats, nearly 6 in 10 independents, and about 4 in 10 Republicans agreeing on something, I'd call it a position with significant bipartisan support. Additionally, about half the people surveyed thought that capital gains and dividends should be taxed the same as work, instead of at the much lower rate that allows non-working people like Mitt Romney to pay such low tax rates.

Romney, meanwhile, is running for president so he can lower his own taxes while raising taxes on everyone making less than $40,000 a year and increasing the deficit. He sure does have his finger on the pulse of working America, doesn't he?

President Obama



"We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. They know that this generation's success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country's future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That's how we'll reduce our deficit. That's an America built to last."



Stick your "class warfare" bullshit up your ass, SiriuslyWrong. :)

"But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you're earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn't get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn't go up. You're the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You're the ones who need relief.
Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/20...lks_taxes.html
Check out the video on the link above.

Buffett Talks Taxes
In an interesting ABC News interview, Warren Buffett lashed out at assertions from Republicans that the "Buffett rule" endorsed last night by President Obama -- which says that anyone earning more than a million dollars a year should be taxed at at least 30% -- is class warfare.

Said Buffett: "If this is a war, my side has the nuclear bomb."