[OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.

[Fyron]

This is exactly what I was talking about Rex... please tone down your Postss.

[oleg]

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissin...43&sid=4248349

Again, what was the reason for this war ?

[Loser]

Originally posted by oleg:
Again, what was the reason for this war ?

To stabilize and add an American Military presence to the most strategically located country in the world.

Though I have to say, I'm not entirely pleased with the progress made toward this end... oh well, time will tell.

[Mephisto]

Moderating mode ON

Please cool the tax discussion and keep civil. Thank you all!

Moderating mode OFF

[Loser]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe...ton/index.html

The government isn't the only one who will lie when its ends are served.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by rextorres:
Huh!!?

AK

Let's start again.

Bush claims he want to cut taxes for the working class. Well MOST people who work make less than 25k a year. You got that!!

MOST of their taxes are in the form of the payroll tax. Look at your check stub sometime if you don't know what that is - obviously you don't.

Actually Rex payroll tax doesn't show up on your pay stub. What you see there is withholding. The majority of working taxpayers get some portion of that back at the end of the year in the form of a tax refund.

And saying most people that work make less then 25,000 is not technically accurate. According to the IRS statistics for 2002, most people make more then 25,000 a year. Out of 129,444,947 individual income tax returns filed only 42% made less then 25,000 a year.

If you want to throw out those more well off and just look at those under 100,000, the numbers are almost equal with slightly more that made less then 25K. But this doesn't really tell you how well off these people are. When you consider that these are IRS statistics and many married couples file separatly and many teens living at home working part or full time jobs have to file also.

Using U.S. Census Beauro statistics you get a clearer picture. According to them only 29.3% of housholds made less then 25,000, and 59.2% made between 25,000 and 100,000. The median household income is 43,057.

[rextorres]

[quote]Originally posted by geoschmo:

Actually Rex payroll tax doesn't show up on your pay stub. What you see there is withholding. The majority of working taxpayers get some portion of that back at the end of the year in the form of a tax refund.

And saying most people that work make less then 25,000 is not technically accurate. According to the IRS statistics for 2002, most people make more then 25,000 a year. Out of 129,444,947 individual income tax returns filed only 42% made less then 25,000 a year.

If you want to throw out those more well off and just look at those under 100,000, the numbers are almost equal with slightly more that made less then 25K. But this doesn't really tell you how well off these people are. When you consider that these are IRS statistics and many married couples file separatly and many teens living at home working part or full time jobs have to file also.

Using U.S. Census Beauro statistics you get a clearer picture. According to them only 29.3% of housholds made less then 25,000, and 59.2% made between 25,000 and 100,000. The median household income is 43,057.

Geo:

I am looking at the census statistics you linked to and it says the median income for individuals is $25,839 and the majority of families make less than $50K I am assuming a family is most likely at least two adults.

I can't find where you got the IRS figures from the posting you placed, but let's say it is 42% that is still the largest amount of workers by tax bracket. This is the point of the argument - they are the largest percentage of workers and they didn't get any real tax cut.

When I said payroll tax - I meant FICA and SSI - the amount is ~8% and - I don't mean to sound snide - has appeared on every check stub I've received - and that is not refunded.

AJT

[ September 17, 2003, 20:03: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by rextorres:
I am looking at the census statistics you linked to and it says the median income for individuals is $25,839 and the majority of families make less than $50K I am assuming a family is most likely at least two adults.

On the census page the "Median Earnings: (dollars)" is 25,839, but that is including seasonal and part time workers, ie students. The Median for the male, full time, year round workers (still the majority of the workforce) is 39,996. The line right below where you were looking.

The majority of families do make less then 50K, and the majority of families do have two adults. But the majority of families don't have two income earners. There aren't stats regarding that on either of these websites but I have seen stats previously that show the majority of families still have only one income. Although that is changing and has been for some time. Most of the families that have two adults working full time will be in the 50,000 to 100,000 range for total household income.

Originally posted by rextorres:
I can't find where you got the IRS figures from the posting you placed, but let's say it is 42% that is still the largest amount of workers by tax bracket. This is the point of the argument - they are the largest percentage of workers and they didn't get any real tax cut.

The numbers are there. I used them to get the percent.

The workers making under 25K are statistically the largest single group if you slice the entire population into equal sized Groups. But that doesn't mean they that most workers fall into that group. And a significant number of workers in that group are part-time, not the primary income earners, and not supporting any dependants. That's not to say of course there aren't many people aren't in poor financial situations. But they aren't the majority of workers.

[Alpha Kodiak]

I may regret entering into this again, but the one thing that keeps being overlooked is that you get the child tax credit regardless of how little you pay in income tax. I will receive a $4000 credit ($1600 higher than Last year) regardless of whether I owe taxes or not. There are some limitations on that, but they primarily apply to those with higher incomes rather than lower. You can argue whether it is a good idea or not, but you can't say the tax break isn't there.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by rextorres:
When I said payroll tax - I meant FICA and SSI - the amount is ~8% and - I don't mean to sound snide - has appeared on every check stub I've received - and that is not refunded.

AJT

Actually "FICA" doesn't show up on a lot of paystubs at all. MY own for example has separate entries for Social Securtiy and Medicare. No it's not refunded, but the way it's supposed to work is you get it back in the form of social security and medicare benefits, and part of it goes for unemployment insurance premiums. Even though it's called a tax, and in effect is a tax, it could technically said to be not a tax. Since theoretically your benefits resulting from it are supposed to be in proportion to the amount you paid in over the years. Of course we all know that's not very likely by the time we retire.

My point is that since it's technically not a tax to begin with you aren't going to get a refund on it. As you said yourself the ones getting refunds are going to be the ones actually paying taxes.