Conquer Club

Frigidus wrote:If I'm remembering right, the top 1% own something like 40% of the country's net wealth (that we know of, that is). That said, I'd say they should be paying at least that much in taxes. Personally, I'm opting for even more than that. More than 50%.

The top 400 U.S. individual taxpayers got 1.59% of the nation’s household income in 2007, according to their tax returns, three times the slice they got in the 1990s, according to the Internal Revenue Service. They paid 2.05% of all individual income taxes in that year.

In its annual update of the taxes paid by the 400 best-off taxpayers, who aren’t identified, the IRS also said that only 220 of the top 400 were in the top marginal tax bracket. The 400 best-off taxpayers paid an average tax rate of 16.6%, lower than in any year since the IRS began making the reports in 1992.

To make the top 400, a taxpayer had to have income of more than $138.8 million. As a group, the top 400 reported $137.9 billion in income, and paid $22.9 billion in federal income taxes.

About 81.3% of the income of the top 400 households came in the form of capital gains, dividends or interest, the IRS data show. Only 6.5% came in the form of salaries and wages.

Over the past 16 tax years 3,472 different taxpayers showed up in the top 400 at least once. Of these taxpayers, a little
more than 27% appear more than once. In any given year, about 40% percent of the top-400 returns were filed by taxpayers who weren’t in that exclusive club in any of the 15 years .

comic boy wrote:What percentage do they currently contribute ?

GabonX wrote:In your opinion, approximately what percentage of total tax revenue collected by government should be payed by the wealthiest 1% of Americans? The question pertains to the percentage of total taxes collected, not what percentage of income should be collected (ie if the government obtains 1 trillion dollars from taxes in a given year, what percentage of that trillion should com from the wealthiest 1% of American citizens).

Curious to see your responses...

** I made a mistake in the original poll by adding the option "20%-30% of all taxes should be contributed by the wealthiest 1% of Americans" twice. Participants of the thread may recast their votes as the poll has been corrected to only include the option once.

PLAYER57832 wrote:First, you would have to sepcify the percentage of US income garnered by that 1%. I can google it, of course, but that is critical to answering this.

PLAYER57832 wrote:Second, the type of income matters. Currently, our systems basically says that if you plop down some money you have lying around and give it to someone else to use temporarily, then any income you gain is much more important, should not be taxes as heavily as wages people earn at any job.

Thirdly, before considering real income, you have to deduct basic costs of living.. but I mean BASIC. Just because someone has a million dollar house does not mean that their mortgage payment is a "basic" expense. The base rental/mortgage rate in an area, to contrast, is. You also have to add in various perks. This includes direct perks like tax deductions only available to certain groups, and more tangential benefits such as not having to pay for an armoured jeep because there are safe, reasonably secure highways, along with things like not having to fully train your workforce from scratch because there is a decent educational system in the country.

Phatscotty wrote:If I may ask, what formula are people using to decide what the fair share of the 1% is? How are people deciding?

bedub1 wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:If I may ask, what formula are people using to decide what the fair share of the 1% is? How are people deciding?

It was easy for me. They have 40% of the wealth, they pay 40% of the taxes. The 99% has 60% of the wealth, they should pay 60% of the taxes.

Phatscotty wrote:

bedub1 wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:If I may ask, what formula are people using to decide what the fair share of the 1% is? How are people deciding?

It was easy for me. They have 40% of the wealth, they pay 40% of the taxes. The 99% has 60% of the wealth, they should pay 60% of the taxes.

What kind of tax rate does that mean for the 1%?

what percentage of total tax revenue collected by government should be payed by the wealthiest 1% of Americans? The question pertains to the percentage of total taxes collected, not what percentage of income should be collected (ie if the government obtains 1 trillion dollars from taxes in a given year, what percentage of that trillion should com from the wealthiest 1% of American citizens).

bedub1 wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:If I may ask, what formula are people using to decide what the fair share of the 1% is? How are people deciding?

It was easy for me. They have 40% of the wealth, they pay 40% of the taxes. The 99% has 60% of the wealth, they should pay 60% of the taxes.