Taxing the Rich doesn’t take you very far
Bottom Line: While Democrats are duking it out over who can best demonize success to appeal to a perceived voting base that’s more interested in sticking it to those who’ve been monetarily successful in their careers than achieving their financial goals themselves...I figured I’d bring back a dose of reality. Several months ago, I addressed the topic of taxing the rich in a Q&A. Here are points that are especially relevant to the Medicare and puppies for all stuff.
Based on the most recent available information from the IRS:
- Top 1%: 37% of all federal income taxes paid
- Top 5%: 60% of all federal income taxes paid
- Top 17% (all who earned $100k or more): 80% of all income taxes paid
Those earning under $50k
- 43% don't pay any net federal income tax
- The percentage of taxes paid...5%
The total earnings of the top 1% equaled $2 trillion last year. The total federal government spend was $4.1 trillion. Forget taxing the rich more, if you confiscated all of the top 1%’s earnings, you still can’t account for half of the government spend prior to offering free puppies and healthcare to you and all the illegal immigrants of the world who will also get free college education. It’s all a bunch of campaign BS and no, it’s not evenly remotely plausible to tax the rich into the ability to provide for all the “free” promises.