Bill would require drug test to claim high-dollar tax deduction

[Benton]

(06-20-2016, 04:47 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I remember once in an accounting class when to Professor once mention something like The top 5%  pay 85% of the Federal Taxes. Now I could be mis-remembering this, so I'll just wait to see how much of a burden on society are those that claim these deductions. 

https://www.aei.org/publication/as-tax-day-approaches-lets-thank-top-20-for-shouldering-84-of-the-income-tax-burden-with-only-50-of-us-income/

Quote:The top 20% of Americans earn about half of all income (51.3%) and pay almost all income taxes (84%), see top chart.


...


 As the WSJ points out, the top 1% of Americans (about 3.2 million people) earn about 17% of total US income, but pay almost as much in taxes (about 46% of the total) as the 322 million people in the bottom 99%

I've heard similar, that was just the first thing that comes up in a Google search. The only thing that's a little off with most of those stories are the negative for the bottom 20% of earners. The stories usually say they receive more than they pay, but that omits gas taxes, sales taxes, and other taxes they have to pay, it's just referring to federal taxes and benefits. On the other hand, it doesn't go into how much the top 20% isn't paying.

Which, for me, is the issue.

There's a few deductions that are good and universal, but many aren't. Or aren't usable without some good tax attorneys on your side. It's prohibitive to people running businesses or just get ahead. We don't need to talk about lower rates and higher rates until we get rid of loopholes and deductions. It doesn't matter if your rate is... if one guy has a good tax attorney he's going to pay 0% and a guy without that resource is going to pay 100%.