Middle Class

[sammyg2]

Wow, you guys must be using a different IRS rule book than I am.
Over the years my tax rate has gone up as my income went up.
The percentage kept going up, up, up, yet you think it is going the other direction. How come?

Besides, if you think the wealthy have it so easy, why don't you become wealthy? All you have to do is pay attention in school, get very good grades, go to a local community college for two years, transfer to a state run school with very good grades (working at night and on weekends to pay your bills), study a real subject and earn a degree that that does not have the word "liberal" or "arts" in it. Get a decent job and work hard to about 25 years until you are at the top of your game. No teaching, only full time jobs apply. For at least 10 of those 25 years take additional college courses at night so you can get another degree, maybe an MBA.
Make sure you set aside at least 12% of your gross income for those 25 years so you have something to rely on when you retire.
After all that you will be considered wealthy and you will have the privilege of paying twice as much in taxes as those who took the easy route.

if that's too much work or too hard or if you have a list of excuses why you can't do all those things, then just sit there and complain that it's not fair that someone who did all those things only pays most of your share and not all of it.

[Hugh R]

Originally posted by Bill Verburg
I have a huge problem when my marginal rate is bigger than some guy w/ 3x the income

Why? If you make $60K/year and pay 15% or $9K in taxes and another guy makes $600K/year and pays a 10% rate and pays $60,000 in taxes, do you not think he's paying his "fair share"? He's paying as much in taxes as you earn and he's still paying almost 7 times as much in taxes as you. What's his "fair share". How much more schools, roads, national defense does he use than you? That is my fundamental problem with taxes. The rich guy gets a 10% tax break to 9% and he still pays $54K in taxes and you bit(h cause he got more tax cuts in absolute dollars than you, even though he still pays almost as much in taxes as you earned! I think its very unfair that Bill Gates pays hundreds of millions in taxes (and I believe he does). Do you have kids in school, now or ever? The fact is that the average working joe doesn't even pay enough taxes to educate his own kids in K-12. In CA we pay about $7,000/kid to educate in K-12. If you have two kids, thats $14,000 in tax money for school, let alone police, fire, roads, flood control, etc. Most people don't want to face this little fact. So who actually pays for all those middle class and lower kids to go to school, and all of the other government services you get? Answer... the Rich.

[m21sniper]

Excellent post Sammy.(yours too Hugh, lol)

[the]

Originally posted by Hugh R
Why? . . . snip

Because many believe it should be "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability."

[Hugh R]

Wow Sammy, its like you read the history of my life, except for the putting aside 12% part. I can't seem to make that mark, but I try to get close. Yep, left before graduating high school as the son of a coal miner who died of black lung when I was 16, joined the USMC at 17 and was a forward observer for the 8" howitzers and 175 mm guns by the time I was 18. For those of you who never served, the attrition rate of forward observers was about par with being a tunnel rat, but I digress.. got out with an honorable, put myself though college between the GI Bill and working full time, graduated, worked full time, got an MBA at night, and the dems. call me a lucky sperm....

[m21sniper]

Originally posted by the
Because many believe it should be "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability."

Well there are a lot of Communists/socialists out there.

The rest of us would rather cut your arm off for STEALING off us rather then support the lazy and stupid so that they can have a free ride.

BTW, in case you had not heard, Communism is a failed ideology.

You want to donate YOUR money, go for it.

You want to STEAL my money....well....there's gonna be a fight.

[m21sniper]

Originally posted by Hugh R
Wow Sammy, its like you read the history of my life, except for the putting aside 12% part. I can't seem to make that mark, but I try to get close. Yep, left before graduating high school as the son of a coal miner who died of black lung when I was 16, joined the USMC at 17 and was a forward observer for the 8" howitzers and 175 mm guns by the time I was 18. For those of you who never served, the attrition rate of forward observers was about par with being a tunnel rat, but I digress.. got out with an honorable, put myself though college between the GI Bill and working full time, graduated, worked full time, got an MBA at night, and the dems. call me a lucky sperm....

Fire mission, target, socialists in open, Golf Lima 695 094, direction 159, adjust fire, over.

[sammyg2]

Good going Hugh. Sounds to me like you've earned it, even though others will say we just had more opportunities.

I didn't serve in the military, I was waaay too rebelious back then and fought authority at every turn. I wouldn't have made it through boot camp. I did register for the draft though.
Luckily for me we this country has plenty of brave souls that have served in my place, my thanks to all of you.

[sammyg2]

Because many believe it should be "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability."

Refresh my memory, who said that? was it Marx, lennon, Stalin?

[on-ramp]

if you make over 20 million a year, why do you need a tax break?

even 2 million a year.... i'm sure a family earning 50K , 2K savings is a big deal.
To a FAT CAT on Wall St, or a CEO earning over a million a year, a tax break is 20-30K . I'm sure they just upgrade their yatch.

so in conclusion, take away the tax cuts from the rich (earning more than 1 Mil AGI) and give more to middle class, to offset rising costs, ie. medical insurance, RE taxes, gas prices, etc.... give the money back to the people that actually NEED it. simple as that.

[artplumber]

Originally posted by sammyg2
Wow, you guys must be using a different IRS rule book than I am.
Over the years my tax rate has gone up as my income went up.
The percentage kept going up, up, up, yet you think it is going the other direction. How come?

...

Bill apparently has "new tax math". Or both of our accountants are worth poo-poo...

[Hugh R]

I guess my point is that if people had a better understanding of where government revenues come from they might like a little smaller federal deficit, especially if the middle class actually pulled their weight in terms of what they actually pay and actually get, but hey! as long as we can tax the rich and they'll pay for it who cares. I believe most democracies that have failed did so because the middle class figured out that they could continue to tax the small (rich) percentage of the population to fund the middle class life style. The thing many people forget are the two most fungible things in the world are people who know how to make money, and people with money.

[Bill Verburg]

Originally posted by artplumber
Bill apparently has "new tax math". Or both of our accountants are worth poo-poo...

Apparantly you and or your accountants don't know what a payroll tax is

Income tax + ss tax + medicare tax = payroll tax


and don't try to make the sale that ss & medicare aren't really taxes, it all goes to the same pot and is spent immediately on wonderful things like cheese museums and bridges to nowhere

your effective tax rate is what you get when the sum of your taxes is divided by your net

Dig out your tax forms from last year, don't forget that if you are not self employed your boss paid 7.65% more of your taxes on all earned income up to $94.2k, if self employed you already know and aren't likely to forget what you paid.

[Hugh R]

Just a concept. Market clearing price equals what your boss pays to hire you, this includes your salary, plus all the Bill mentioned above including ss tax (the employers side) + medicare+medical insurance+ retirement (if paid) +anything else they pay. And here's a jolt, you paid the employer side of social security, not your employer.... why you ask? because its part of your employers cost of hiring YOU. Again, take econ 101, if you don't believe me. Since its part of the market clearing price of employing you the employers side of SS is part of what it cost him to hire YOU.

[hytem]

Lower middle is probably about $20-40K, upper middle $60-80K.

These incomes shrink when you are paying college tuitions on a couple of kids.

Why are college tuitions so high? That's a scandal in itself.

[alf]

Annual income is not the best measure of "class". Net worth is a much better indicator of wealth than income but that would be much harder to track.

Should we as a society give those less fortunate a helping hand? Yes.

A hand out? No.

[m21sniper]

Originally posted by on-ramp
if you make over 20 million a year, why do you need a tax break?

even 2 million a year.... i'm sure a family earning 50K , 2K savings is a big deal.
To a FAT CAT on Wall St, or a CEO earning over a million a year, a tax break is 20-30K . I'm sure they just upgrade their yatch.

so in conclusion, take away the tax cuts from the rich (earning more than 1 Mil AGI) and give more to middle class, to offset rising costs, ie. medical insurance, RE taxes, gas prices, etc.... give the money back to the people that actually NEED it. simple as that.

Oh yeah, cause that's perfectly just, right mr. Marx?

How bout we just take your Porsche instead?

Got a problem with that?

All of your fat cat socialists....tommorow morning i demand that all of you sell your porsches and immediately go out and buy food and distribute it to the needy in your areas.

If you do not, we will come put you in prison for Porsche tax evasion.

Your little socialist plans sound pretty effin' sucky now, dont they?

Closet Chic' Commies.

[450knotOffice]

I'm with Sammy and m21sniper on this one.

[artplumber]

Originally posted by Bill Verburg
Apparantly you and or your accountants don't know what a payroll tax is

Income tax + ss tax + medicare tax = payroll tax


and don't try to make the sale that ss & medicare aren't really taxes, it all goes to the same pot and is spent immediately on wonderful things like cheese museums and bridges to nowhere

your effective tax rate is what you get when the sum of your taxes is divided by your net

Dig out your tax forms from last year, don't forget that if you are not self employed your boss paid 7.65% more of your taxes on all earned income up to $94.2k, if self employed you already know and aren't likely to forget what you paid.

From the SSI website:

The OASDI tax rate for wages paid in 2007 is set by statute at 6.2 percent for employees and employers, each. Thus, an individual with wages equal to or larger than $97,500 would contribute $6,045.00 to the OASDI program in 2007, and his or her employer would contribute the same amount. The OASDI tax rate for self-employment income in 2007 is 12.4 percent. (Tax rates of 1.45 percent for employees and employers, each, and 2.90 percent for self-employed persons, are applied to all earnings—without a taxable maximum—under Medicare's Hospital Insurance program.)

Hence, all persons earning over 100K continue to pay additional taxes on higher income amounts.

Does the reduction in SSI tax result in a lower "net" tax rate? Only if you consider this simple math. You forget that the AGI can result in significant decreases in income tax rate (4% would be the start) with a resulting reduction in your "net' tax rate. You no longer have access to those deductions if you meet criteria as someone who is taxed under the AMT. I grant you, that you can (as a business owner) find a way to reduce your AGI to levels where you may not be affected by the AMT, but if you are a w2 or 1099 earner that won't be the case.

[Bill Verburg]

Here is a graph of effective Federal payroll tax rates for a single individual,deductions are left out.


Where do you all fit?