auditor0007
Gold Member
On Tuesday night, Jon Stewart had a segment that summed up what's wrong with how the media talks about taxes. If you don't want to watch the segment, I'll summarize (briefly): All this week, cable news and many newspapers have highlighted a 2009 study by the Tax Policy Center that found that 47 percent of Americans have no income tax liability.
Why point to this study now? Well, tax day is Thursday, the media needed a good story, and the Drudge Reportwhich seems to serve as the assignment editor for 90 percent of the television producers in Americafeatured the story on its front page. As you may know, the Drudge Report has an agenda. And as you may suspect, the TPC study is misleading without context. Cable news is terrible at providing context. But this is one of those cases where excluding the context essentially makes the story wrong. Focusing on income taxes when you discuss Americans' tax burden ignores the fact that most Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in federal income tax. The truth is that only a very small percentage of Americans pay no federal taxesand most of those folks are paying at least some state taxes. Here's Stewart:
Who Pays Taxes? | Mother Jones
Nobody cares if they pay payroll taxes or state taxes or any other taxes. Federal income taxes are the only taxes that matter, and if a low income earner isn't paying them, then they're not paying their fair share. Everyone should pay at least 20%, even if the wealthy only pay 17%.