A liberal and a conservative were sitting in a bar. Then Bill Gates walked in.

[KrazyHorse]

Get some math skills. Really. This isn't that hard.

Take A who makes 15000 a year and B who makes 1000000 a year. Make up some numbers for personal exemption. Say it's at 10000 right now, income over that is taxed at 20% until 100000 and then it's taxed at 40%.

A pays 1000 a year in taxes, B pays 378000 a year.

Increasing the personal exemption to 15000 a year means A pays 0 in taxes, B pays 376000. A's tax burden has been reduced 100%, B's has been reduced 0.52%. B has of course gained 2000$ while A has only gained 1000$, but the impact is much heavier on A than on B. The current tax cuts are equivalent to A and B both getting a similar percentage of tax back (ignoring dividend tax).

See the difference, John?

[JohnT]

OMG, did you just fake some math and deduction figures to prove a non-existant point? !!!!! Is there anybody else here who thinks such an approach is as intellectually dishonest as I?

For what it's worth, I don't have to make up numbers to prove my point. Given a real-world family (mine) filling out a 1040 form with your income assumptions gives me the answers

Income: $15,000
Standard Deduction: $7,850
Exemptions: $9,000
Total Income Deductions and Exemptions: $16,850
Taxable Income: 0
Total Tax: 0
AMT: 0
Total tax taken from paychecks (using tax table): $1,954
Total Refund: $1,954

Obviously, raising the exemption on me or my wife or my kids will have no effect on taxes. Given your example, it is quite possible for me to get a LARGER refund than what I actually paid in taxes (using child-care and education tax credits and the like). I did not use these credits because then I would be faking my maths.

I'm bowing out of this thread - you may continue your discussion without me. I cannot and will not participate in a debate with people who LITERALLY pull facts and figures out of air.

[KrazyHorse]

Really now. 9000$ in deductions on a 15000$ paycheck. Think that through again.

What exactly would that 15000$ income person be writing 9000$ off on, sweetheart? Thank you, come again.

9000$ in deductions is reasonable for somebody making 70000+, not 15000.

So bull****.

[KrazyHorse]

So according to you the average minimum wage earner with a full time job pays 0$ in federal taxes?

[Asher]

I've yet to ever read a Tom Tomorrow comic with comedic elements.

Maybe it's his lame-ass name that puts me off...

or perhaps political pandering...

Hell, it just ain't funny. They're lame stereotype jokes for the most part.

[KrazyHorse]

Obfuscation, obfuscation obfuscation.

Anybody with the math skills of an 11 year-old and the patience to think about it for 30 seconds can tell you that raising the personal exemption has a larger proportional impact on the tax burden of a lower-income family than that of a higher-income family, while chopping off the top brackets has a larger proportional impact on the tax burden of a higher-income family than on the lower-income family...

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Frogger
Really now. 9000$ in deductions on a 15000$ paycheck. Think that through again.

What exactly would that 15000$ income person be writing 9000$ off on, sweetheart? Thank you, come again.

9000$ in deductions is reasonable for somebody making 70000+, not 15000.

So bull****.

Fill out the form. Don't come back to me until you do so.

To answer your question re: the $9,000. You get a $7,350 personal deduction for filing Married, jointly. In addition to that, you get a $3,000 exemption for every person in your household*, including yourself. I have 3 people in my household. Ergo, $9,000. That raises my income deductions to $16,000+, making my taxable income $0.

You see what happens when you don't FAKE your arguments?

*There are exceptions, but none of them apply in my case (i.e., Sophie isn't off at school, away from the house over 1/2 the year. If she was, I couldn't claim her as an exemption).

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Frogger
Obfuscation, obfuscation obfuscation.

Anybody with the math skills of an 11 year-old and the patience to think about it for 30 seconds can tell you that raising the personal exemption has a larger proportional impact on the tax burden of a lower-income family than that of a higher-income family, while chopping off the top brackets has a larger proportional impact on the tax burden of a higher-income family than on the lower-income family...

And anybody who actually does the work will tell you that this is not necessarily so.

That fact is independent of your "logic".

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by JohnT


Fill out the form. Don't come back to me until you do so.

To answer your question re: the $9,000. You get a $7,350 personal deduction for filing Married, jointly. In addition to that, you get a $3,000 exemption for every person in your household*, including yourself. I have 3 people in my household. Ergo, $9,000. That raises my income deductions to $16,000+, making my taxable income $0.

You see what happens when you don't FAKE your arguments?

Snooze.

a) Yes, now all of a sudden they've got 3 kids on one income. Great. Hope you noticed that we can play this game as high as you want, but the fact remains that somebody in the bottom 50% is paying taxes.

b) Are you really so obtuse that you missed my point?

It is possible to reduce the tax load of a low-income taxpayer at a rate proportionally higher than you reduce the tax load of a high-income taxpayer. The simplest way to achieve this is to raise the personal exemption. The simplest way to reduce the tax load of a high-income taxpayer at a rate proportionally higher than that of a low-income taxpayer is to drop percentages off the top income tax bracket or to increase the level at which that tax bracket kicks in.


To repeat:

Obfuscation, obfuscation obfuscation.

Anybody with the math skills of an 11 year-old and the patience to think about it for 30 seconds can tell you that raising the personal exemption has a larger proportional impact on the tax burden of a lower-income family than that of a higher-income family, while chopping off the top brackets has a larger proportional impact on the tax burden of a higher-income family than on the lower-income family...

[KrazyHorse]

And that is necessarily goddamn so, John.

Necessarily, as long as everything else remains equal (i.e. as long as spousal and child deductions don't change). Would you like me to give you a proof of that?

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Frogger


Snooze.

a) Yes, now all of a sudden they've got 3 kids on one income. Great. Hope you noticed that we can play this game as high as you want, but the fact remains that somebody in the bottom 50% is paying taxes.

b) Are you really so obtuse that you missed my point?

Frogger, you created an example, worked some maths based upon non-existent tax law, to prove your point about US Federal Income Taxes. Obviously the fact that your assumptions and your math have nothing to do with reality in this country (you know, the country the cartoon was about) means nothing to you.

No, there are not 3 kids. 1 kid. My wife and I count as the other 2. As anybody who can read the thread will note, I was taking your income figures, an actual real-world family (mine) and applying US Tax Law to test your hypothesis. You failed. Deal with it.

[David Floyd]

What's wrong with tax cuts for the wealthy? They're getting ****ed much more than I am, in terms of the unfair system of tax brackets, just as I'm getting ****ed much more than people who make less money than I do.

[chequita guevara]

What 50% doesn't pay taxes? I've made less than the average the last two years and I still paid taxes (then again, I don't have a wife and kiddies, I really need to get Bunnygrrl to marry me). Therefore it is likely that most people pay taxes.

[JohnT]

Dammit people, do NONE of y'all check links???

The IRS does, Che! And, to repeat myself for the second.. third... fourth? time, it is US Federal Income Taxes we're talking about, not "taxes" in general.

[chequita guevara]

Might I remind you that you posted the link after you posted the statement.