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It's also worth noting that the top 1% pay about 40% of all income taxes at the federal level, and they earn about 20% of annual income from all sources (http:/

It's also worth noting that the top 1% pay about 40% of all income taxes at the federal level, and they earn about 20% of annual income from all sources (http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/186106 http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/186106). So classifying 88% of federal revenue as paid by regular workers might be a bit misleading

lovich 5y ago
Did 100% of the wealth generated by the 1% come from their income taxed at that rate, or did they have a significant portion of their generated wealth come from capital gains? Classifying the 1%'s wealth by talking about their income as if its 100% of their wealth might be a bit misleading.
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  > might be a bit misleading Does wealth matter when you're talking about taxes? I was under the impression "1%" was in reference to share of adjusted gross income, not total wealth.
greycol 5y ago
In the same spirit it might be worth noting that 'earn about 20% of annual income" could also be considered a bit misleading 'receive about 20% of annual income" would be a less controversial term.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
99% of the top 1% are "normal workers" like me - engineers at Google - or my cousin - a radiologist - or one of my best friends - an investment banker - or lawyers, or owners of successful small businesses, etc... These "normal workers" pay a lot of that 40% of the tax bill. There aren't that many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and board members, A+ list celebrities, and aristocrats. You're getting into the .01% - that's still 32,000 people! Chicago Booth put together an article with graphs to really show how much the top 0.01% has diverged [1]. The top 0.01% still pays A LOT of the income taxes - about 5% - but that means, mostly hardworking normal people in the top 1% are paying the other 35% of that 40% share of the tax bill. It's not like Bill & Melinda Gates are paying 40% of the tax bill by themselves... [1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...
- aaronchall 5y ago
  So using your numbers, the top percent of the top percent pay 1/8 of the taxes that the top percent pay, and the remaining 99% of the top percent pay 7/8 of those taxes. That is still quite disproportionately more. I pay a big chunk of my income in taxes too. Everyone needs to contribute. There's not enough money otherwise, and demanding that Bill Gates pay more, as much as I dislike him, isn't going to do it (and doesn't seem fair as he's already paying his fair share).
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    The top 1% - minus the top 0.01% - are paying 35% of all income taxes. The top 0.01% themselves are paying another 5%. The bottom 99% are paying the remaining 60%.
- roenxi 5y ago
  That article is saying top 1% income in the US is numbers higher than $400k! The median was something like $50k or $80k last time I checked. Those aren't normal workers, those are exactly there sort of people who are seen as not contributing their fair share. They physically can't be working harder than a median worker but they're getting multiples of the salary. If someone is going to be supporting society, they are the people with the means.
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    > Those aren't normal workers What's your definition of a normal worker? Lawyers, doctors, dentists, pilots, architects and programmers sound like normal workers to me. This is still millions of people, and I imagine they would think they're normal workers, too. But Fortune 500 CEOs? Well, there's only... 500. Even the combined payroll of the MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLS is less than 10,000 professional athletes where median pay is $860k, $1.15M, and $8.3M for the NFL, MLB, and NBA respectively.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      I'm going to point at the median worker, they're pretty normal. All the people you're listing aren't necessarily normal workers - observe that some of them are part of the much-vaunted 1%. I don't really understand the mindset that people are grumpy about the 1% and then interpret that as "oh really they're on the side of the 1% they mean the 0.1%". If anything, it might be the other way around and they mean the 10%. The argument is there need to be more transfer payments. A mindset that CEOs need to pay but not fabulously wealthy doctors/dentists/programmers is a mystery to me. What even is the argument? These are people who either need to work for 2 years (pre-tax) to live comfortably for a decade or they're squandering their earnings. They are outrageously wealthy.
fastaguy88 5y ago
One must be careful about focusing on income taxes - they leave out about 1/3 of federal revenue paid by social security taxes, which are overwhelmingly paid by the bottom 99%. And focusing on federal taxes leaves out state and local taxes, which are also borne by the majority of the populace.

lovich 5y ago

Did 100% of the wealth generated by the 1% come from their income taxed at that rate, or did they have a significant portion of their generated wealth come from capital gains? Classifying the 1%'s wealth by talking about their income as if its 100% of their wealth might be a bit misleading.

tomnipotent 5y ago
> might be a bit misleading Does wealth matter when you're talking about taxes? I was under the impression "1%" was in reference to share of adjusted gross income, not total wealth.

greycol 5y ago

In the same spirit it might be worth noting that 'earn about 20% of annual income" could also be considered a bit misleading 'receive about 20% of annual income" would be a less controversial term.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

99% of the top 1% are "normal workers" like me - engineers at Google - or my cousin - a radiologist - or one of my best friends - an investment banker - or lawyers, or owners of successful small businesses, etc... These "normal workers" pay a lot of that 40% of the tax bill. There aren't that many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and board members, A+ list celebrities, and aristocrats. You're getting into the .01% - that's still 32,000 people! Chicago Booth put together an article with graphs to really show how much the top 0.01% has diverged [1]. The top 0.01% still pays A LOT of the income taxes - about 5% - but that means, mostly hardworking normal people in the top 1% are paying the other 35% of that 40% share of the tax bill. It's not like Bill & Melinda Gates are paying 40% of the tax bill by themselves... [1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...

aaronchall 5y ago
So using your numbers, the top percent of the top percent pay 1/8 of the taxes that the top percent pay, and the remaining 99% of the top percent pay 7/8 of those taxes. That is still quite disproportionately more. I pay a big chunk of my income in taxes too. Everyone needs to contribute. There's not enough money otherwise, and demanding that Bill Gates pay more, as much as I dislike him, isn't going to do it (and doesn't seem fair as he's already paying his fair share).
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  The top 1% - minus the top 0.01% - are paying 35% of all income taxes. The top 0.01% themselves are paying another 5%. The bottom 99% are paying the remaining 60%.
roenxi 5y ago
That article is saying top 1% income in the US is numbers higher than $400k! The median was something like $50k or $80k last time I checked. Those aren't normal workers, those are exactly there sort of people who are seen as not contributing their fair share. They physically can't be working harder than a median worker but they're getting multiples of the salary. If someone is going to be supporting society, they are the people with the means.
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  > Those aren't normal workers What's your definition of a normal worker? Lawyers, doctors, dentists, pilots, architects and programmers sound like normal workers to me. This is still millions of people, and I imagine they would think they're normal workers, too. But Fortune 500 CEOs? Well, there's only... 500. Even the combined payroll of the MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLS is less than 10,000 professional athletes where median pay is $860k, $1.15M, and $8.3M for the NFL, MLB, and NBA respectively.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    I'm going to point at the median worker, they're pretty normal. All the people you're listing aren't necessarily normal workers - observe that some of them are part of the much-vaunted 1%. I don't really understand the mindset that people are grumpy about the 1% and then interpret that as "oh really they're on the side of the 1% they mean the 0.1%". If anything, it might be the other way around and they mean the 10%. The argument is there need to be more transfer payments. A mindset that CEOs need to pay but not fabulously wealthy doctors/dentists/programmers is a mystery to me. What even is the argument? These are people who either need to work for 2 years (pre-tax) to live comfortably for a decade or they're squandering their earnings. They are outrageously wealthy.

fastaguy88 5y ago

One must be careful about focusing on income taxes - they leave out about 1/3 of federal revenue paid by social security taxes, which are overwhelmingly paid by the bottom 99%. And focusing on federal taxes leaves out state and local taxes, which are also borne by the majority of the populace.