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20 September 2011

FACT CHECK: Are The Rich Taxed Less Than Secretaries? Not Exactly.


"People who make most of their money in wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income from investments pay at lower rates."
  - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner



WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries. The data say they already are.

"Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it," Obama said as he announced his deficit-reduction plan this week. "It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million."

On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

In his White House address on Monday, Obama called on Congress to increase taxes by $1.5 trillion as part of a 10-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion. He proposed that Congress overhaul the tax code and impose what he called the "Buffett rule," named for the billionaire investor.

The rule says, "People making more than $1 million a year should not pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay." Buffett wrote in a recent piece for The New York Times that the tax rate he paid last year was lower than that paid by any of the other 20 people in his office.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

There may be individual millionaires, who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers, but there are few and far between. 

1.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the 10% of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes and more than 70% of federal income taxes.

2.  In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service, but that's less than 1% of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.

3.  This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

4.  Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15% of their income in federal taxes.

5.  Households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5% of their income in federal taxes. 

6.  Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7%.

7.  In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4% of their income in federal income taxes, according to the IRS.

8.  In 2009, households making between $50,000 and $60,000 paid an average of 6.3% in federal income taxes.

9. In 2009, households making between $100,000 and $125,000 paid on average 9.9% in federal income taxes.
Obama's claim hinges on the fact that, for high-income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. 

The top tax rate for dividends and capital gains is 15%. 

The top marginal tax rate for wages is 35%, though that is reserved for taxable income above $379,150.

With tax rates that high, why do so many people pay at lower rates? Because the tax code is riddled with more than $1 trillion in deductions, exemptions and credits, and they benefit people at every income level, according to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official scorekeeper on revenue issues.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46% of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year. Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.

"People who are doing quite well and worry about low-income people not paying any taxes bemoan the fact that they get so many tax breaks that they are zeroed out," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. "People at the bottom of the distribution say, 'But all of those rich guys are getting bigger tax breaks than we're getting,' which is also the case."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed at a White House briefing on the number of millionaires who pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-income families. He demurred, saying that people who make most of their money in wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income from investments pay at lower rates.

"So it really depends on what is your profession, where's the source of your income, what's the specific circumstances you face, and the averages won't really capture that," Geithner said.

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-rich-taxed-less-secretaries-070642868.html

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 Average Federal Income Taxes Paid, as Percent of Income

Income..................Average tax rate

Under $75K.....................6.6%.......

$75K to $100K................8.5%.......

$100K to $200K.............11.9%.....

$200K to $500K.............19.6%....

$500K to $1M..................24.4%...

$1M to $1.5M...................25.3%...

$1.5M to $2M...................25.6%...

$2M to $5M......................25.8%...

$5M to $10M...................25.4%...

$10M or more.................22.6%..

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=134951,00.html

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