Do The Wealthy Even Pay Taxes?

[Fenton Lum]

Wall Street Journal, gee, that couldn't have a dog in that fight could they.

If you have evidence to the contrary you are free to present it. Ad Hominems don't interest me.

A link was added your majesty.

Fair is a matter of opinion. Numbers are a matter of fact.

80% of Americans own an unbelievably small portion of the country's wealth

The wealth redistribution embarked upon a half century ago is unsustainable, I hope they continue until things pop off.

agreed, the idea of stealing from the rich through taxation is blatant discrimination and unconstitutional.

Everyone else is fine though.

 

[depotoo]

Gee, yes they do, latest year data available, 2015

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/14in11si.xls

They pay the vast majority of them.

Top 20% of Earners Pay 84% of Income Tax

Wall Street Journal, gee, they couldn't have a dog in that fight could they.

High-income Americans pay most income taxes, but enough to be ‘fair’?

 

[Indeependent]

There is a lot of talk on the news about taxing the rich. But do they even pay taxes?!

IRS tells us that top 1% pay them 44% of personal income tax they collect. Sorry to rock your world.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned government agencies? I have seen our government lie about so much that I wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue.

Everybody lies.
Even those whose lies you agree with.

 

[WillowTree]

They pay the vast majority of them.

Top 20% of Earners Pay 84% of Income Tax

You can tell though, from his post, his mind is made up. In his mind the wealthy pay no taxes!

 

[Fenton Lum]

There is a lot of talk on the news about taxing the rich. But do they even pay taxes?!

IRS tells us that top 1% pay them 44% of personal income tax they collect. Sorry to rock your world.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned government agencies? I have seen our government lie about so much that I wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue.

Everybody lies.
Even those whose lies you agree with.

They didn't used to, but now? In this society? Yeah, nothing is real, most especially the illusion of america. And it is so acceptable the president lies every single day, outlandishly. Hell, he ran on lies and won on lies.

 

[Fenton Lum]

Gee, yes they do, latest year data available, 2015

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/14in11si.xls

They pay the vast majority of them.

Top 20% of Earners Pay 84% of Income Tax

Wall Street Journal, gee, they couldn't have a dog in that fight could they.

High-income Americans pay most income taxes, but enough to be ‘fair’?

80% of Americans own an unbelievably small portion of the country's wealth

May the trend continue until there is unrest in the streets.

 

[task0778]

There is a lot of talk on the news about taxing the rich. But do they even pay taxes? How would you know. Any information you hear comes from them! As for what any government agency may have to say, we all know what a revolving door it is between the private sector (the wealthy) and the political sector. And of course, the politicians that run the government agencies I mentioned are part of that.

Also, there are banks all over the world where the wealthy can deposit anonymously. Thereby avoiding taxes. Also, tax laws themselves are written by and for the wealthy. The wealthy can also afford to hire tax lawyers to find any of what are probably zillions of loopholes written into those tax laws. On top of all that, every year there are many companies that pay no taxes at all. Which I call corporate welfare.

On top of all that, back in the 60's, the average salary for a company executive was around 25 times what the average worker made. Today, it is around 250 times that. And not all that long ago, it for closer to 400 times what the average worker made! And the wealthy complain about being taxed too much?! Boo fukin Hoo!!!

You are guilty of cherrypicking data, an intellectually dishonest practice that is common among many of those who support Leftist positions.

While the huge multi-million pay packages of a few hundred CEOs get all of the media attention, what usually receives much less attention is the small number of CEOs represented in the annual salary surveys, especially compared to the total number of CEOs in the US. For example, the WSJ’s executive compenstation survey last year included only 300 CEOs at large, U.S.-traded public companies, and the AP analyzed compensation figures for only 337 companies in the S&P 500 last year. The AFL-CIO did an analysis of the CEOs of 350 companies in the S&P 500 in 2013 and then computed a “CEO-to-worker pay ratio” of 331 times, up from a ratio of 300 ten years ago and 200 twenty years ago.

Although these samples of 300-350 CEOs are representative of large, publicly-traded, multinational US companies, they certainly aren’t very representative of the average US company or the average US CEO. According to both the BLS and the Census Bureau, there are more than 7 million private firms in the US, so the samples of 300-350 firms for CEO pay represent only one of about every 21,500 private firms in the US, or about 1/200 of 1% of the total number of US firms. And yet the AFL-CIO, Financial Times, AP, the WSJ and others compare the average annual wages of hundreds of millions of full-time employees working at the more than 7 million US companies to the CEO pay of executives at only several hundred companies, which is hardly a fair comparison.

We can get a more accurate and complete picture of CEO compensation in the US by looking at wage data released recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its annual report on Occupational Employment and Wages for 2014. The BLS report provides “employment and wage estimates by area and by industry for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups, 94 minor occupational groups, 458 broad occupations, and 821 detailed occupations,” including the occupational category “chief executives.” In 2014, the BLS reports that the average pay for America’s 246,240 chief executives was only $180,700. The CEOs of the 300-350 S&P 500 firms that supposedly represent typical CEO compensation represent only one out of about every 820 firms in the country (or 1/7 of 1%) that have a CEO at the head. The larger sample of almost a quarter-million CEOs reported by the BLS gives us a much better understanding of “average CEO compensation.”

For the larger sample of CEOs reported by the BLS, their average pay of $180,700 last year was an increase of only 1.3% from the average CEO pay of $178,400 in 2013. In contrast, the BLS reports that the average pay of all workers increased by 1.7% last year to $47,230 from $46,440 in 2013. That’s right, the average worker last year saw an increase in their pay that was more than 30% greater than the increase in pay for the average US CEO.

And the “CEO-to-worker pay ratio” for the average CEO compared to the average worker was only 3.83 times last year (see chart above), nowhere close to the pay ratio of 331X reported by the AFL-CIO using the 350 highest-paid CEOs in the country. Call it a “statistical falsehood-to-truth ratio” of 87-to-1 for the AFL-CIO’s exaggerated, bogus ratio. The chart above also shows that the real CEO-to-worker pay ratio has not been increasing as is frequently reported, but instead has been remarkably constant over the last 13 years, averaging 3.8-to-1 in a tight range between a maximum of 3.89-to-1 in 2004 and a minimum of 3.69-to-1 in both 2005 and 2006. The ratio of 3.83-to-1 in the most recent year (2014) was actually the lowest CEO-to-worker ratio in six years, since 2008.


When we consider all US 'chief executives,' the ‘CEO-to-worker pay ratio’ falls from 331:1 to below 4:1 • AEI

 

[Indeependent]

There is a lot of talk on the news about taxing the rich. But do they even pay taxes?!

IRS tells us that top 1% pay them 44% of personal income tax they collect. Sorry to rock your world.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned government agencies? I have seen our government lie about so much that I wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue.

Everybody lies.
Even those whose lies you agree with.

"They didn't used to"

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

 

[Fenton Lum]

There is a lot of talk on the news about taxing the rich. But do they even pay taxes?!

IRS tells us that top 1% pay them 44% of personal income tax they collect. Sorry to rock your world.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned government agencies? I have seen our government lie about so much that I wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue.

Everybody lies.
Even those whose lies you agree with.

"They didn't used to"

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

 

[Indeependent]

IRS tells us that top 1% pay them 44% of personal income tax they collect. Sorry to rock your world.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned government agencies? I have seen our government lie about so much that I wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue.

Everybody lies.
Even those whose lies you agree with.

"They didn't used to"

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

Be honest and just say that Republicans lie and Democrats are from heaven or that politicians lie and the news media is from heaven.
In either case, you're suffering from delusions.

 

[Fenton Lum]

Did you miss the part where I mentioned government agencies? I have seen our government lie about so much that I wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue.

Everybody lies.
Even those whose lies you agree with.

"They didn't used to"

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

Be honest and just say that Republicans lie and Democrats are from heaven or that politicians lie and the news media is from heaven.
In either case, you're suffering from delusions.

They are all on the same team pard, your good guys and your bad guys are merely riding in different cars of the same train running down the same track while economically cannibalizing society.

 

[Indeependent]

Everybody lies.
Even those whose lies you agree with.

"They didn't used to"

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

Be honest and just say that Republicans lie and Democrats are from heaven or that politicians lie and the news media is from heaven.
In either case, you're suffering from delusions.

They are all on the same team pard, your good guys and your bad guys are merely riding in different cars of the same train running down the same track while economically cannibalizing society.

Of course they're all on the same team even though you just said they aren't.
Honesty has always been wanting in any person or organization that requires an audience.

 

[Fenton Lum]

"They didn't used to"

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

Be honest and just say that Republicans lie and Democrats are from heaven or that politicians lie and the news media is from heaven.
In either case, you're suffering from delusions.

They are all on the same team pard, your good guys and your bad guys are merely riding in different cars of the same train running down the same track while economically cannibalizing society.

Of course they're all on the same team even though you just said they aren't.
Honesty has always been wanting in any person or organization that requires an audience.

I said they aren't, terrirfic. You don't need my participation for this, just make up my bits for me. Have a nice evening.

 

[maxo]

They pay the vast majority of them.

Top 20% of Earners Pay 84% of Income Tax

Wall Street Journal, gee, they couldn't have a dog in that fight could they.

High-income Americans pay most income taxes, but enough to be ‘fair’?

the Constitution says we cant discriminate against the rich so why do we let liberals get away with it?

The constitution allowed slavery and genocide, I don't really view it as a guide to anything moral or just. And the working class and poor have been sodomized over the past half century. I say we stick to it until the unrest comes. Please.

The unrest has already come. The question is how much of it does there need to be for change. And with how most people have been programmed to like "taking it up the ass," there is probably going to need to be quite a lot of it.

 

[maxo]

"They didn't used to"

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

Be honest and just say that Republicans lie and Democrats are from heaven or that politicians lie and the news media is from heaven.
In either case, you're suffering from delusions.

They are all on the same team pard, your good guys and your bad guys are merely riding in different cars of the same train running down the same track while economically cannibalizing society.

Of course they're all on the same team even though you just said they aren't.
Honesty has always been wanting in any person or organization that requires an audience.

Ah. You mean like internet political forums. You hit the nail on the head there.

 

[Indeependent]

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

Be honest and just say that Republicans lie and Democrats are from heaven or that politicians lie and the news media is from heaven.
In either case, you're suffering from delusions.

They are all on the same team pard, your good guys and your bad guys are merely riding in different cars of the same train running down the same track while economically cannibalizing society.

Of course they're all on the same team even though you just said they aren't.
Honesty has always been wanting in any person or organization that requires an audience.

I said they aren't, terrirfic. You don't need my participation for this, just make up my bits for me. Have a nice evening.

I refer you to post 25.

 

[Indeependent]

Be precise...when did they not use to lie?

As in "everybody"? You know what, if you think it's always been like this, you just run with that.

Be honest and just say that Republicans lie and Democrats are from heaven or that politicians lie and the news media is from heaven.
In either case, you're suffering from delusions.

They are all on the same team pard, your good guys and your bad guys are merely riding in different cars of the same train running down the same track while economically cannibalizing society.

Of course they're all on the same team even though you just said they aren't.
Honesty has always been wanting in any person or organization that requires an audience.

Ah. You mean like internet political forums. You hit the nail on the head there.

I presume those who start multiple threads a day feel an emotional need for attention.

 

[Zander]

They pay the vast majority of them.

Top 20% of Earners Pay 84% of Income Tax

Wall Street Journal, gee, they couldn't have a dog in that fight could they.

High-income Americans pay most income taxes, but enough to be ‘fair’?

Don't worry Fenton, Trump loves you!! He loves the poorly educated!!

Don has no idea what he says from one moment to the next. Who is more uneducated than Don?

Hmm.....let's see. ......

He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Wharton, amassed a multi-billion $ fortune, and is now the most powerful man on the planet.

What have you done? I mean, besides make a fool of yourself here?

Jeebus, some folks have been programmed to worship wealth so much that nothing else matters. Wharton! Fucking business school. Silver spoon in his ass at birth, and I'm sorry, being president ain't all that impressive to me; especially when the jaggoff goes at it like this.

But you keep waiting for some wealthy aristocrat to come save you.

Sorry to disappoint, but I don't need saving.

I don't expect anything from government except to stick to the enumerated powers and get the fuck out of the way.

 

[maxo]

They pay the vast majority of them.

Top 20% of Earners Pay 84% of Income Tax

You can tell though, from his post, his mind is made up. In his mind the wealthy pay no taxes!

Do tax loopholes exist? Do banks exist that you can anonymously deposit money in? Do the wealthy control just about everything you hear? Go ahead and tell me none of these things are true.

Also, I used to pay taxes. It was deducted from my paycheck every week. But after I filed my income taxes, I got most of it back. So how can that be taxation. A loan is more accurate. From what I hear of long past history, when people were taxed, they were taxed. There were no tax returns. Has any of this made up your mind yet?

Now I know how I was taxed. But I don't know if the wealthy are treated the same way. Do they file taxes returns and get BIG tax refunds? I don't know. But even if they are taxed, what does it mean. If I made $10,000 a year and paid $.50 cents for a candy bar, what percentage of my income would that be. Now if I made $100,000 a year, what percentage of my income would it be. Or what if I bought a new car and made $200,00 dollar payments on it each month, making 10,000 dollars a year, what percentage of my income would that be over 5 years. But if I made $100,000 dollars a year and just outright bought a car, what percentage of my income would that be over 5 years. I think you see what I am getting at.

 

[maxo]

There is a lot of talk on the news about taxing the rich. But do they even pay taxes? How would you know. Any information you hear comes from them! As for what any government agency may have to say, we all know what a revolving door it is between the private sector (the wealthy) and the political sector. And of course, the politicians that run the government agencies I mentioned are part of that.

Also, there are banks all over the world where the wealthy can deposit anonymously. Thereby avoiding taxes. Also, tax laws themselves are written by and for the wealthy. The wealthy can also afford to hire tax lawyers to find any of what are probably zillions of loopholes written into those tax laws. On top of all that, every year there are many companies that pay no taxes at all. Which I call corporate welfare.

On top of all that, back in the 60's, the average salary for a company executive was around 25 times what the average worker made. Today, it is around 250 times that. And not all that long ago, it for closer to 400 times what the average worker made! And the wealthy complain about being taxed too much?! Boo fukin Hoo!!!

You are guilty of cherrypicking data, an intellectually dishonest practice that is common among many of those who support Leftist positions.

While the huge multi-million pay packages of a few hundred CEOs get all of the media attention, what usually receives much less attention is the small number of CEOs represented in the annual salary surveys, especially compared to the total number of CEOs in the US. For example, the WSJ’s executive compenstation survey last year included only 300 CEOs at large, U.S.-traded public companies, and the AP analyzed compensation figures for only 337 companies in the S&P 500 last year. The AFL-CIO did an analysis of the CEOs of 350 companies in the S&P 500 in 2013 and then computed a “CEO-to-worker pay ratio” of 331 times, up from a ratio of 300 ten years ago and 200 twenty years ago.

Although these samples of 300-350 CEOs are representative of large, publicly-traded, multinational US companies, they certainly aren’t very representative of the average US company or the average US CEO. According to both the BLS and the Census Bureau, there are more than 7 million private firms in the US, so the samples of 300-350 firms for CEO pay represent only one of about every 21,500 private firms in the US, or about 1/200 of 1% of the total number of US firms. And yet the AFL-CIO, Financial Times, AP, the WSJ and others compare the average annual wages of hundreds of millions of full-time employees working at the more than 7 million US companies to the CEO pay of executives at only several hundred companies, which is hardly a fair comparison.

We can get a more accurate and complete picture of CEO compensation in the US by looking at wage data released recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its annual report on Occupational Employment and Wages for 2014. The BLS report provides “employment and wage estimates by area and by industry for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups, 94 minor occupational groups, 458 broad occupations, and 821 detailed occupations,” including the occupational category “chief executives.” In 2014, the BLS reports that the average pay for America’s 246,240 chief executives was only $180,700. The CEOs of the 300-350 S&P 500 firms that supposedly represent typical CEO compensation represent only one out of about every 820 firms in the country (or 1/7 of 1%) that have a CEO at the head. The larger sample of almost a quarter-million CEOs reported by the BLS gives us a much better understanding of “average CEO compensation.”

For the larger sample of CEOs reported by the BLS, their average pay of $180,700 last year was an increase of only 1.3% from the average CEO pay of $178,400 in 2013. In contrast, the BLS reports that the average pay of all workers increased by 1.7% last year to $47,230 from $46,440 in 2013. That’s right, the average worker last year saw an increase in their pay that was more than 30% greater than the increase in pay for the average US CEO.

And the “CEO-to-worker pay ratio” for the average CEO compared to the average worker was only 3.83 times last year (see chart above), nowhere close to the pay ratio of 331X reported by the AFL-CIO using the 350 highest-paid CEOs in the country. Call it a “statistical falsehood-to-truth ratio” of 87-to-1 for the AFL-CIO’s exaggerated, bogus ratio. The chart above also shows that the real CEO-to-worker pay ratio has not been increasing as is frequently reported, but instead has been remarkably constant over the last 13 years, averaging 3.8-to-1 in a tight range between a maximum of 3.89-to-1 in 2004 and a minimum of 3.69-to-1 in both 2005 and 2006. The ratio of 3.83-to-1 in the most recent year (2014) was actually the lowest CEO-to-worker ratio in six years, since 2008.


When we consider all US 'chief executives,' the ‘CEO-to-worker pay ratio’ falls from 331:1 to below 4:1 • AEI

I wasn't talking about the CEO's of big multinational corporations. I was talking about the average company executive. For example, I was watching something somewhere once where they were talking to the manager of some grocery store that was part of some larger grocery store chain. The company decided that the manager should "only" earn about 14 times more than the average worker made. Does that straighten things out at all?