Who Pays Taxes?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

No one should make a "profit" off of the US Treasury. I am all for progressive taxation, provided no one makes a goddamn profit and no one has a federal income tax liability of zero. Make them each pay a buck, it's symbolic but at least they'll have skin in the game.

There are plenty of businesses that have zero tax liability. The OP gave the example of Exxon/Mobil.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

There are plenty of businesses that have zero tax liability. The OP gave the example of Exxon/Mobil.

You should read that article about Exxon in full

[Ali G. 37]

This is why I think taxes should be based on consumption rather than income (with adjustments to make them non-regressive on income). Really, the people who aren't earning enough to pay federal taxes aren't making enough that they are able to pay them IMO.

The most effective taxation models are based on a hybrid of both. It's far to easy to avoid paying taxers here. For example, purchasing something from another state.

The GST that Canada, Australia, New Zealand use ensures everyone pays their fair share of taxes and has little of the, often confusing, exclusions like the VAT. Cash in hand is big business here and is currently barely taxed. Whereas, a federal GST or VAT would close this loophole.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Are you not-so-subtly implying that people who don't have any federal tax burden spend their money frivolously? I don't doubt that some (most) do, at least at times.

Poor people buy the most lottery tickets, smoke and drink more. These are facts.

Would you really rest better knowing that the working poor were paying their "share" of $5?

Yes. I barely sleep right now and I think this may help.

[Jenn! 918]

Poor people buy the most lottery tickets, smoke and drink more. These are facts.

We should have "federal taxpayer identification cards". No purchase of any luxury items whatsoever without showing proof that you paid into the system. Come to think of it, maybe it would be easier to just take the first $40,000 (EITC threshold?) of everyone's income and give them government housing, food, etc.

Yes. I barely sleep right now and I think this may help.

[SMOKE 1,426]

Are you not-so-subtly implying that people who don't have any federal tax burden spend their money frivolously? I don't doubt that some (most) do, at least at times.

I'm not into symbolic gestures. It's meaningless. Would you really rest better knowing that the working poor were paying their "share" of $5?

EITC would be great if it were used for its original purpose...the kids having food, clothing & shelter.

unforunately, more often than not its used for flat screens & ps3 wireless controllers... but thats for the kids too.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

EITC would be great if it were used for its original purpose...the kids having food, clothing & shelter.

unforunately, more often than not its used for flat screens & ps3 wireless controllers... but thats for the kids too.

Maybe EITC should be given to them in the form of a debit card, like food stamps are. And they can only use it for essentials like clothing, school supplies, antibiotics, etc.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Maybe EITC should be given to them in the form of a debit card, like food stamps are. And they can only use it for essentials like clothing, school supplies, antibiotics, etc.

Why do you want to subsidize companies who don't pay a living wage when so many millions of working Americans qualify for the EITC?

[SMOKE 1,426]

Maybe EITC should be given to them in the form of a debit card, like food stamps are. And they can only use it for essentials like clothing, school supplies, antibiotics, etc.

it shouldn't be 'given' at all. like you said 'noone should make a profit from the treasury'. give them back what they pay in & be done.

it might piss off bestbuy & couple used car lots, but they'll get over it.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

it shouldn't be 'given' at all. like you said 'noone should make a profit from the treasury'. give them back what they pay in & be done.

sorry, staying consistent is so hard.

Yes, absolutely. Give them back what they paid in minus the cost of the cheapest pack of cigarettes.

Why do you want to subsidize companies who don't pay a living wage when so many millions of working Americans qualify for the EITC?

No one is owed a living wage. You are paid what you're worth.

[SMOKE 1,426]

Why do you want to subsidize companies who don't pay a living wage when so many millions of working Americans qualify for the EITC?

why do you want to add 15+ million to the number of people that qualify for EITC now?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Stagnating Workers' Wages

In 1979 the American worker's average hourly wage was equal to $15.91 (adjusted for inflation in 2001 dollars). By 1989 it had reached only $16.63/hour. That's a gain of only 7 cents a year for the entire Reagan decade.

But wait. Things get worse! By 1995 it had risen to only $16.71, or virtually no gain whatsoever over the 6 years between 1989 and 1995. During the great 'boom years' between 1995 and 2000 it rose briefly to $18.33 per hour. In other words, from 1979 to 2000, even before the most recent Bush recession, after more than two decades the American worker's average wages increased on average only 11.5 cents per hour per year! With nearly all of that coming in the five so-called 'boom' years of 1995-2000, and most of that lost once again in the last three years. And that includes for all workers, even those with college degrees.

The picture is worse for workers who had no college degree. That's more than 100 million workers, or 72.1% of the workforce. For them there was no 'boom of 1995-2000' whatsoever. Their average real hourly wages were less at the end of 2000 than they were in 1979! And since 2000 their wages have continued to slide further.

The Great Productivity Swindle

Management is always quick to say in contract negotiations, 'give us more productivity and we can afford to give you a bigger raise'. But this has been a false promise from 1979 to 2000, and an even bigger lie under George Bush II.

With 1992 as base year, productivity was at 82.2 in 1979. It grew to 94.2 by 1989 and 116.6 by the year 2000. In the past year, moreover, it has exploded, putting it over 120. That's a nearly 40% increase since Ronald Reagan took office nearly 25 years ago!

The 100 million American workers without college degrees, whose real take home pay today is less than it was 25 years ago, certainly can't be said to have shared in that 40% productivity gain. And the other 20 million or so with college degrees whose pay rose modestly at best certainly shared in very little of that nearly 40% productivity gain.

So who got all the money?

CEOs & Executive Compensation

Considering just the period from 1989 to the present yields an obscene result. The median executive salary (cash pay and bonuses) of American CEOs rose by 79% from 1989 to 2000�and has continued to accelerate right through the current Bush II recession! And that's only the median. The average CEO cash and direct compensation growth is even higher than 79%.

But wait! That's only CEO wage or 'cash' compensation. How about management incentives, stock options exercised, the value of new stock grants, special supplemental pensions, etc. etc. The growth of this 'direct compensation' of CEOs from 1989 to 2000 was no less than 342%!. 212% of that growth occurred in the 'boom years' of the late 1990s.

Put in real money terms, the median pay for an American CEO was $2,436,000 in 1989 and $10,775,000 by 2000.

The growth in CEO compensation has been unstoppable, and is accelerating faster every year. In 1965, CEO pay was 26 times that of their average worker. In 1980, as noted, 40 times. In 1989, it was 72 times. In 1999 it had risen to 310 times, and today, as per the above data from the accounting firm, Towers Perrin, survey it has reached 500 times.

The international comparisons are also interesting to note. Whereas the American worker today earns only about a third more than the average wage of the worker in 13 other industrialized countries, for those same countries the American CEO earns 300%, or three times, as much as his CEO counterpart. No average CEO compensation in any of the other 13 countries is equal to even half that of the typical American CEO's. For example, the ratio of CEO to average worker's pay ranges from a low of around 10 to 1 for Japan and Switzerland to a high of around 25 to 1 in the UK and Canada.

As one source has put it, "in 2000 a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than what the average worker earned in 52 weeks. In 1965, by contrast, it took a CEO two weeks to earn a worker's annual pay".

The Falling Minimum Wage

One of the more shameful legacies of the past decades has been what has been allowed to happen to American workers at the lower end of the earnings spectrum. While workers at the top end have become fewer and fewer with the outsourcing and offshoring of high pay-good benefits union jobs, those at the lower end have been suffering their own severe hardship.

We are talking here about more than 10 million American workers who earn the minimum wage. (Contrary to corporate propaganda, only 28% of those getting paid minimum wage are teenagers. Most are single women or men as head of households). The minimum wage in America reached its high point in the late 1960s in terms of real buying power, and thereafter went into a deep and steady free fall of more than 29% decline in buying power under Reagan during the 1980s. In the early and mid 1990s the decline was slowed somewhat with modest increases in the minimum wage legislated by Congress, but has fallen sharply was again since the last increase in the federal minimum wage in 1996, now approaching almost a decade ago.

In terms of 2001 dollars, the minimum wage in 1979 was worth $6.55. It fell to $4.62 in 1989, rose modestly in the early and mid-1990s, but today in 2003 is equivalent to only $4.94 an hour. The minimum wage is 21.4% less today than it was in 1979.

The Legacy of Declining Hourly Wages in American: Working Longer And Harder

The overall picture is abundantly clear: real average hourly ages of more than 100 million of American workers' are less today than 25 years ago; real wages of college educated workers have risen only modestly in the late 1990s and fallen since under Bush II; and real wages of the 10 million lowest paid workers have declined more than 21%.

link

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

why do you want to add 15+ million to the number of people that qualify for EITC now?

Because then he'll have them right where he wants them. They will be serfs of the state and be forced to buy iPads!

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

EITC would be great if it were used for its original purpose...the kids having food, clothing & shelter.

unforunately, more often than not its used for flat screens & ps3 wireless controllers... but thats for the kids too.

No lie! I see trailer trash all the time, can't afford to fix the furnace, the water heater, the refrigerator, 14 kids living in hip deep paper plates, but they gots the 4 ft wide lcd, with every game controller possible attached to it.

Edited April 15, 2010 by ##########

[mawilson 2,133]

Federal payroll taxes are specifically for social security and medicare. These are programs all Americans will be entitled to. Everyone paying these taxes will derive benefit from these taxes, unless of course they die early.

But by not paying the federal income tax, almost half of all Americans aren't contributing towards shared expenses like the national defense, the national park service, interstate highways, etc. Just about all Americans derive benefit from these expenses, yet only half (about) pay into them.

Where's the fairness in that?