Tax rate on wealthiest 1% falls to 18 year low

[nradisic]

Source: Marketwatch

A growing share of the income pie, plus decreasing tax rates to boot. Not a bad deal. Unfortunately, it's a deal that's enjoyed by just 1% of the richest Americans.
That hallowed group enjoyed 22% of the nation's adjusted gross income in 2006, and saw its average tax rate drop to an 18-year low. That's the latest from the IRS' income statistics division.
As election season heats up, the candidates' tax plans will garner more attention, and that statistic could prove an interesting point of departure for debate. Does it make more sense to raise taxes on the nation's wealthiest people or to keep tax rates low in an effort to fuel-inject the economic engine?
Whether you are wealthy, poor, or in-between, your answer to that question will go a long way to revealing how you're likely to mark the ballot come November.
-- Andrea Coombes, assistant personal finance editor
Richest Americans see share of income grow, tax rates fall
In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.
See full story.

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/taxing-times-tax-rate-americas/story.aspx?guid=%7B7D8BD8F8%2D786A%2D4323%2D904D%2D366674474D20%7D&dist=hplatest

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Obama has it right. It is way past time the top 1% pay their share. Times up!

[Mind_your_head]

1. Praise G-d!!!! Oh wait, I'm not in the top 1% (nor anywhere NEAR that level)

so what am I thankful for? :think:

OH, I KNOW NOW, DUH! I get to carry all of those rich person's weight! :-) while they get to enjoy the fruits of MY labor. I see why I should do the "happy-dance" now. aaaaahhhhhhhh;.............

:crazy:

[Paula Sims]

30. Sad but so many who make less than 30k think they are in the top 1%

and thus are supporting the tax cuts. For them who voted this in (especially the 2nd time), I say you get what you asked for.

[MindPilot]

2. So, umm, excuse me...*raises hand*

Weren't tax cuts for the rich supposed to improve the economy?

[BeHereNow]

4. Yeah, how's that working for us? Not so great, eh?

I swear to God, I want to leave this country in the worst way.
If it weren't for my elderly parents, I'd be long gone.
BHN

[HughBeaumont]

14. It DID improve "The Economy".

Because in Dumberica, when someone refers to "The Economy", what they really mean is "how well corporations and the wealthy that run them" are doing. I think it was Will Pitt who said "The 'economy' is just another word for 'someone that's not you getting paid'". Workers are a bare necessity to today's modern feudal system. Our insistence on only pleasing one section of society for the past 47 years (and pretty much every year before 1936) instead of combining the better aspects of socialistic systems with a democratic government has become our undoing and will eventually lead to our collapse.

[davekriss]

26. Just think how our accounting is structured

Payroll is a liability on the P&L, employees are not assets on the balance sheet. Liabilities are things to reduce, squeeze out, exploit, seek the lowest possible expenditure -- so American corporations of any size either outsource overseas to best cost countries where a mid-level IT worker or engineer gets paid about $700 per month, or insource H1B and L1 visas and pay half what they'd had been paying American workers. That's considered a successful move, it contributes directly to the bottom line. This is progress in capitalism, exploitation of labor with intent of driving its cost input into the the value chain to the lowest possible value, thereby allowing accrual of greater profit for the owning class, the top 1% fat cats sitting on piles of gold.

I mean, given that in America our political institutions have abdicating their duties to construct rules and regulations that maximize the greatest good for the greatest number of people, our political economy is f*cked. It socializes costs while privatizing the vast majority of political benefit in the form of profit in the hands of the few. Jefferson said it best,

Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Annapolis Citizens, 1809

And Zappa, so prescient, made the most appropriate comment about our current condition in 1977:

The illusion of freedom in America will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.
-- Frank Zappa

[Jackpine Radical]

16. And indeed they did. Note that the wealthy are doing better than ever.

All you whiners act like there's something wrong with that.

People just don't get it. The best way to eliminate an undesired behavior is to tax the hell out of it. The genius of the Bush Administration is to eliminate poverty by taxing it so that people can no longer afford to be poor.

What's so hard to understand about that?

[BeHereNow]

3. And let's not even get started on the offshore accounts and secret bank accounts.

Welcome to serf world where the rich devour the rest of us,
with the complicity of the elected public servants.

BHN

[robinlynne]

27. I think it's more than complicity at this point. I used to look at it as complicity.

[On the Road]

5. She Doesn't Give the Numbers?

Or the reason for the decline? Great article.

[Doctor_J]

6. McSame wants to cut his & Cindy's taxes by an additional $400,000/yr

You won't hear this from Big Media though

[devilgrrl]

7. Bet all those $80,000 a year BILLIONAIRES are just beside themselves!

They must be really cashing in!!!!! :sarcasm:

[Redstone]

18. I'm guessing that you're saying that the story says that $80K is in the top 1%.

If that's indeed the case, then the writer of the story needs to be fired, and your "sarcasm" sig is well-done.

there are indeed many, MANY places in the US where $80K of annual income, whether singular or whole-family, just barely gets you to middle-class status.

Seems like you know that, and thanks for posting it.

Redstone

[davekriss]

24. Threshold to make top 1% was $345,000 about 6 years ago

I imagine, with inflation and further breaks for Bush's Base that the figure has grown higher. So, unless any of the numb minded Republithug lurkers out there are making better than $345,000 per, they better vote with us this November!

You can check inequality.org for the latest numbers if you want. :)

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. It is tunes like this that, in the past...

Made Madame Guillotine sing her heart out.

[jayfish]

9. And How Has This Trickle Down Economy Working Out? -NT-

Jay

[Lasher]

12. We got trickle down, we got invisible hand.

Larry Kudlow says the problem is, we don't have enough trickle down or invisible hand. Yessir, all we need is more tax cuts for billionaires and more deregulation. And it's Clinton's fault. Plus Obama's.

[jayfish]

13. Mostly Obama's

In case you haven't seen the commercial.

Jay

[HughBeaumont]

Larry Coke-udlow needs to STFU.

CNBC Get Off the AIR!

[Lasher]

19. I like to tune in sometimes nowadays.

He and his dittoheads are in denial so bad it cracks me up.

[Phred42]

10. Poor babies

[bulloney]

11. An 18-year low? That would take us back to 1990. Who was in mid-term of presidency?

Why, it was George HW Bush!

I've written it at least 100 times. All of these negative economic benchmarks we've been reading about in recent months go back to a Republican administration. Some as far back as Hoover.

[Lasher]

20. You gotta give Junior credit for being a record setter.

S&P 500 Annualized Gains

[hay rick]

32. excellent chart

I've been looking (not very hard) for this kind of information. If only we'd had the good sense to privatize Social Security as a way of celebrating junior's inauguration. We all could be sharing the magic of -0.82% returns on the investment of our collective life savings.

[Lasher]

33. I put that one together myself.

Here's a chart I built when I studied Medicare Part B premium increases:



Even ignoring the impact of the means testing provided for the first time by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, premiums increased 129.23% during the current administration. During Clinton’s 8 years in office, Part B premiums increased just 43.08%. Higher inflation rates notwithstanding, Saint Gipper raised premiums 105.75%. During their 4 year terms Poppy and Carter raised them 28.23% and 33.33%, respectively.

The Part B yearly deductible was raised in 1991 from $75 to $100. It remained unchanged until 2005 when it went up to $110. It was $124 last year and it’s $146 now. That’s a total increase of 46% in the deductible for Junior’s 8 years. For Clinton it was 0%. For Poppy’s was 33.33%. Saint Gipper 25%. Carter 0%.

Here is an OP I put up a week ago: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3651872

And here are some articles:

What Bush Boom?

Democratic Superiority, by the Numbers

[dansolo]

15. Tax rate - that doesn't even consider the tax evaders

The wealthy don't even pay their already minuscule share. They have ways of avoiding taxes that aren't available to the average taxpayer.

[WhiteTara]

17. this abomination isn't flaming!?!

I am definitely grossed out! Let's kick these bastards OUT OF THE PARK :kick:

[Snarkoleptic]

21. Mission Accomplished...all your wealth are belong to us.

http://www.lcurve.org/

[lonestarnot]

22. I can't wait to watch them whine!

Whiney motherfuckers!

[wild2]

23. Trickle down economics!

The rich are pissing on us and we are getting the trickle. Stop voting for these people. It is a shame Rep. Kucinich didn't get elected 4 president. Honestly, I don't think Obama is going to change much if and when he is in the white house. Things will remain the same.

[trthnd4jstc]

25. ChecK This Out People

I pay 15% for Federal Taxes, and app. 15$ for Social Security, 30% Taxation, the Rich on the average pay 22%. They are such a large portion of the economy they pay 20% total of the Total Federal Taxes. Further, if my business makes profit, I will pay 15% of the profits that I would take from the business. I pay more in Federal Taxes as a portion of my income, and I am a Working Class, Tiny Business Owner, than the rich.

[femrap]

28. Where's Robin Hood?

Someone in Hollywood needs to bring this dude back and show the public how it is done!

[Zorra]

29. After Dems take total control in January they should tax the wealthiest 1%

of Americans at a rate that would prevent them from using wealth to control the government.

A 70% tax rate would be about right. Bumping up the inheritance tax on the super-rich would also help prevent fascism from spreading further.

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power" FDR, 1938

[SOS]

31. Record Price Reported on Manhattan Co-op

"The Manhattan co-op market has just set a sales record, according to brokers briefed on the sale.
Jonathan Tisch, the chairman and chief executive of Loews Hotels, closed this month on the purchase of a sprawling 14-room co-op facing Central Park, for $48 million, the brokers said.
The previous record was set in January, when Scott Bommer, the chairman of the hedge fund SAB Capital, and his wife, Donya, paid $46 million for two co-op apartments at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street. (These prices are easily surpassed in the New York City condominium market; a year ago Harry Macklowe, the developer, paid $52 million for a condo at the Plaza.)
“The sheer depth of the wealth at the high end continues to be quite remarkable,” said Kirk Henckels, a broker at Stribling & Associates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/realestate/27deal2.html

How nice for the top 1%!