I'm not afraid or in fear. I simply don't understand how it is supposed to work with real numbers. If post 66 is right, then it comes out to less than $3.00 a month - WTF? I can't believe thats correct.

Merc, I'm not blaming. Let people make their money. However, there has been a significant disparity in just the last few decades. So, the wealth has already been 'redistributed' from the regular working class over to the owner class. This is only naturally going to cause a lot of problems. Especially when the working class can barely take care of itself (considering health care and cost of living). If those who are making the money are not properly compensating those who are helping to make it for them...you have problems.

I don't disagree with your basic premise, but in the last sentance you describe what I believe to be the mindset of those who think the top 5% should burden the pain of tax. Now mind you, if you are in the top 5% you should do your part, but lets be clear, it is not the top 5% that are the problem among the rich. Let's narrow that to the top 0.5% the uber rich. These are the people who have less tax to pay. The Warren Buffets and Bill Gates. They are not much different than the problem with Corprate Tax breaks. What Obama and Biden have done is they have polarized the tax payers into two groups and are trying to tell the lower 95% that the problem is with the 5% and that is patently false.

And of course we can look at life choice and personal responsiblity, choices people have made in life as young people, and even young adults, which have put themselves into situations that they are often now locked into. But we can't let personal responsibility get in the way of an election and the emotional hot buttons of have's and have not's.

Well, will families making less than $250,000 get a tax cut under President Obama, or not? Senator Obama has been saying this for months, but on Monday Joe Biden put the tax-cut income threshold at $150,000 in an interview with a TV station in his beloved Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Biden campaign later clarified -- or at least tried to clarify -- the matter by saying that anyone making between $150,000 and $250,000 wouldn't get a tax cut but also wouldn't pay higher taxes.

We suspect what's going on here is more than Mr. Biden's normal gift of gaffe. As with his admission that a President Obama would quickly be tested by our enemies, the Delaware rambler was stumbling into the truth. An Obama Administration couldn't possibly pay for a tax cut for 95% of Americans by raising taxes on a mere 5%. Those 5% don't make enough money, or at least they won't after they find ways to shelter more of their income when their tax rates rise.

Just as Bill Clinton promised a "middle-class tax cut" in 1992 only to raise taxes on the middle class in 1993, Mr. Obama will quickly find that his tax-revenue math doesn't add up. Add in the demands on Capitol Hill to spend more and to offset the Alternative Minimum Tax, and our bet is that even $150,000 would soon prove to be a moving tax target. Remember when the AMT was only supposed to hit 21 millionaires? Next year, without relief, it could hit 26 million taxpayers. Tax increases always hit the middle class because that's where the money is.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122523819032678157.html

They make their money off the labors of another? uh, ok. then is it fair to say the bottom 95% are leaching off the top 5% because they don't provide the financing and structure for their own jobs?

that is a seriously ridiculous statement.

and BTW - my numbers came from actual tax returns I held in my hands and saw with my own eyes. The accountants I was working with said that is about normal. I don't know your specifics.

I would like to see those same numbers in increasingly graduated amounts of 50k up to 500k, just for grins. It will not be a linear progression.

Lookout, I suspect that someone whose finances are complicated enough to require an accountant in the first place also have loopholes available to them (the kind you've discussed wanting to eliminate with a flat tax, and I happen to agree with you,) even if their net income is only in the $50,000 range instead of the $500,000. I don't think "people who hire accountants" is a representative sample. Our household's income-to-tax-liability ratio doesn't come close to matching up with your numbers either.

I use an accountant. One persons loophole is another persons legal deduction.

And do your total tax liability numbers match up with what lookout's accountants are used to seeing?

I could not tell from the numbers posted. My liability is a bit higher.

Your uber rich even disagree with you. People such as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and a long list of other uber rich have complained that their tax rates are too low.

Warren Buffet even uses specific examples to be blunt about it. Buffet says he is paying a low tax rate than even his receptionist.

Which rich people complain about taxes too high? Let's see. The same people who make $millions on Wall Street by playing money games AND who claim they still deserve their bonuses because their salary is only 10% of those bonuses. These same people who claim taxes are too high also claim they have a right to bonuses even when the company is no longer profitable and taking money from the government.

Americans pay some of the lowest taxes in the world. And Americans will still pay some of the lowest taxes in the world if tax rates are simply put back to where they were ten years ago. There is a fact that is not disputable. Tax cuts were provided only to the richest income earners. Even the uber rich have complained about these tax cuts.

We all should be complaining about tax games that have tax accountants and tax software necessary. In the year of tax simplification, I filed 13 Federal tax forms. What also makes taxes unfair? Tax laws written by people who never do their own taxes. Their taxes are done by a government paid employee. Even mistakes mean no tax penalties. No wonder taxes have become so much more complex every ten years. That tax software and accountants - just another hidden tax.

If the rich paid the same 22% or 23% taxes that the average American paid, then the rich would suffer a major tax increase. The uber rich also approve of that solution.

That is what I said. Do you ever read before you post?

What you wrote was not stated if you agreed with Buffet, et al. You never state that agreement. Read what your wrote. One must assume you agree with Buffet - what you do not state - to understand that you agree with me.

You stated " if you are in the top 5% you should do your part, but lets be clear, it is not the top 5% that are the problem among the rich." So you don't agree with Buffet? Of course it is. That is where tax cuts existed. The richer and better positioned mean tax cuts got even bigger.

If you are going to disagree with administration propaganda and agree with Buffet, then please state that.

AMT applies to anyone above $100,000. Those at the $100,000 level do AMT calculations but pay nothing. AMT is a complex entity to guarantee that the rich pay some taxes because the government has given the rich so many tax breaks. Solution begins by getting rid of the tax breaks (which creates other problems). Alongside a tax structure distorted to favor the rich is a tax system that has become so ridiculously complex that even IRS people no longer can undestand it.

Distorted laws are welfare to tax accountants and another tax on the taxpayer. Tax laws so complex that the average taxpayer actually believed he had a tax cut when no such tax cut existed.

If you are going to agree with the uber rich and disagree with an administration you always agree with, then it helps to say so. You did not. It helps if you decide to be unambiguous.

Are you always a dick or do you just play one on the internet? Please Ted go bomb some Judge somewhere. This exchange does not suit you.