More right wing propoganda. More convolution of facts.
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER - Associated Press | AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama makes it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries.
"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said Monday. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."
The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.
There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That, however, was less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.
In his White House address Monday, Obama called on Congress to increase taxes by $1.5 trillion as part of a 10-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion. He proposed that Congress overhaul the tax code and impose what he called the "Buffett rule," named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
The rule says, "People making more than $1 million a year should not pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay."
Read it all here: http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-ric...070642868.html