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Note the word "income" - this kind of "X% of earners pay Y% of income taxes quote" deliberately excludes what are called "payroll taxes" in the U.S. Payroll ta

Note the word "income" - this kind of "X% of earners pay Y% of income taxes quote" deliberately excludes what are called "payroll taxes" in the U.S. Payroll taxes (basically Social Security and Medicare taxes) are regressive (fall more heavily on lower incomes). They're also paid as a percentage of income (like income taxes) so it's easy to think they would naturally be part of "income" taxes.

mikeash 12y ago
Just so. It's either stupid or deliberately misleading to only look at the distribution of one tax in isolation. As I recall, the total tax rate including all types of taxes is almost equal across income groups. Poor people pay a smaller percentage in income taxes but a larger percentage in things like sales taxes.
- ageek123 12y ago
  The article does address this. It says "The share of tax paid by the top 20% of Americans also changes when such social-insurance levies are included: It drops from more than 80% of income taxes to about 67% of all federal taxes."
  - mikeash 12y ago
    What about the large number of other taxes people pay? Note also that 67% is getting close to the proportion of total income commanded by the top 20%, and that's without including other regressive taxes.
- gutnor 12y ago
  The title is flamebait, the actual key point of the article is that the US (federal level) is making 51% of its revenue from the same source, which fiscally speaking does seem risky. For example, other countries extract much tax from actual use of money (consumption tax) The fact that the top 20% pays 84% of income tax is of little interest not knowing how much they make (i.e. they could make 95% of all the income or 35%), how much of a burden the tax actually is (i.e. 83% of not a lot is still not a lot) note: I made the mistake of quickly scanning the article and then it was paywalled when I tried properly reading it, leaving just the title - which I suppose will be reused verbatim to justify all sort of fancy idiotic discussion in the weeks to come.
jbuzbee 12y ago
You should exclude SS and Medicare when talking about income tax rates. Both of these are basically forced-savings, not taxes. You pay in (save) when working, you get the money back when you retire in the form of SS payments and medicare coverage. Obviously that's a bit of simplification as todays payroll deductions directly fund today's retirees, but the general idea is correct. Unlike taxes, you will more-or-less get back what you put in when you retire. You can't lump income tax and these two force-savings together when talking about tax burden.
- rewqfdsa 12y ago
  No, we should definitely include SS and Medicare. You're correct about retirement programs, but the reality is that people lump income taxes and these "forced savings" into "stuff taken out of my paycheck". When you claim the rich pay 84% of taxes, the implication is that their "stuff taken out of my paycheck" contribution is five times that of the average schmuck, and that's not the case.
  - jbuzbee 12y ago
    If people are confused about "stuff taken out of my paycheck", then the answer is education, not more muddying of the waters by mixing two completely different deductions.
    - rewqfdsa 12y ago
      You're never going to educate away the intuitive identification of payroll deductions proportional to income with the phrase "income taxation".
- jwellnitz 12y ago
  Why does it matter when the tax payer gets something back? And do I get nothing back from the income taxes I pay today? If I pay income taxes today to buy a ship for the U.S. Navy, and that ship is used 10 years later to defend the port where I work, does that change how I view the income tax paid today? I'm pretty sure they're taxes either way.

mikeash 12y ago

Just so. It's either stupid or deliberately misleading to only look at the distribution of one tax in isolation. As I recall, the total tax rate including all types of taxes is almost equal across income groups. Poor people pay a smaller percentage in income taxes but a larger percentage in things like sales taxes.

ageek123 12y ago
The article does address this. It says "The share of tax paid by the top 20% of Americans also changes when such social-insurance levies are included: It drops from more than 80% of income taxes to about 67% of all federal taxes."
- mikeash 12y ago
  What about the large number of other taxes people pay? Note also that 67% is getting close to the proportion of total income commanded by the top 20%, and that's without including other regressive taxes.
gutnor 12y ago
The title is flamebait, the actual key point of the article is that the US (federal level) is making 51% of its revenue from the same source, which fiscally speaking does seem risky. For example, other countries extract much tax from actual use of money (consumption tax) The fact that the top 20% pays 84% of income tax is of little interest not knowing how much they make (i.e. they could make 95% of all the income or 35%), how much of a burden the tax actually is (i.e. 83% of not a lot is still not a lot) note: I made the mistake of quickly scanning the article and then it was paywalled when I tried properly reading it, leaving just the title - which I suppose will be reused verbatim to justify all sort of fancy idiotic discussion in the weeks to come.

jbuzbee 12y ago

You should exclude SS and Medicare when talking about income tax rates. Both of these are basically forced-savings, not taxes. You pay in (save) when working, you get the money back when you retire in the form of SS payments and medicare coverage. Obviously that's a bit of simplification as todays payroll deductions directly fund today's retirees, but the general idea is correct. Unlike taxes, you will more-or-less get back what you put in when you retire. You can't lump income tax and these two force-savings together when talking about tax burden.

rewqfdsa 12y ago
No, we should definitely include SS and Medicare. You're correct about retirement programs, but the reality is that people lump income taxes and these "forced savings" into "stuff taken out of my paycheck". When you claim the rich pay 84% of taxes, the implication is that their "stuff taken out of my paycheck" contribution is five times that of the average schmuck, and that's not the case.
- jbuzbee 12y ago
  If people are confused about "stuff taken out of my paycheck", then the answer is education, not more muddying of the waters by mixing two completely different deductions.
  - rewqfdsa 12y ago
    You're never going to educate away the intuitive identification of payroll deductions proportional to income with the phrase "income taxation".
jwellnitz 12y ago
Why does it matter when the tax payer gets something back? And do I get nothing back from the income taxes I pay today? If I pay income taxes today to buy a ship for the U.S. Navy, and that ship is used 10 years later to defend the port where I work, does that change how I view the income tax paid today? I'm pretty sure they're taxes either way.