Basic Tax Numbers Everyone Should Know

First, let's look at Romney's magical 47.5% that "don't pay any taxes".  This is repeated ad nauseum by Republicans.  Actually, the closest I can come is 46.7% of tax returns report adjusted gross income of less than $30,000 in 2012.  That is 67,615,746 returns. Those returns gross  $752,607,105,000 income, or an average of $11,130 income.  This represents 105.3 million people, or roughly 1.56 people per return.  They average $ 145 per return in taxable income, with about half have zero taxable income at all.  Sure Mitt, those are the people creating a tax problem in this country.

That low income group has total taxable income of $ 240 billion, or $3,563 per return. They pay $ 21 billion in taxes - not zero, as Romney claims!  That is $312 per return, or 8.7% of their income.

The top 3.6% of taxpayers make more than $200,000 gross income per return, averaging 579,417 per return.  There are more than about 4 million people in this category, including dependents.  Let that sink in for a few minutes!  4 million people enjoy 3 billion dollars worth of income, of 4 times as much as the lowest 27 million earn combined.  An average of $579,000 gross income versus $11,131.

So, you want the poor people to pay their "fair share" of 17%, as bandied around by a number of people?  That would raise as much tax as if the richest 3.6% paid 1.59% more in taxes.

Should the family making $11,130 pay another $100 a month in taxes?

Or should the family making $579,417 per year pay another $800 per month in taxes?

This should give you enough information to figure out why Reagan and Bush's tax cuts have been a disaster for this country.  An unmitigated tax disaster.  The top 3.6% have had their taxes cut by about half under these two Presidents.  That reduced the federal tax collections by about $800 billions per year.

What does our deficit run?  I forget.

We'll save the middle group - those families that make over $30,000, but less than $200,000 for another day.  I'll give you a hint, they average 2.3 dependents per return.  The highest of the 3 groups.

I'll also give you another idea to think about. If we raised the taxes of everyone who has a gross income of over $100,000 by 2% - we could start paying off our debt in big chunks.  Yes, Folks, if your family makes over $100,000 per year, you are not middle class - you are in the top 20% of wage earners in the country.

Go back to taxes on the top 20% under Reagan and we could actually plan on being debt free.