Tax Policy Center: Average tax increase and after-tax income

[ProSense]

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=3755&DocTypeID=1

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[Fumesucker]

2. I love it

Less than 10K and 200-500K get the same percentage of change in after tax income.

In the same direction.

We must all share in the sacrifice.

[ProSense]

3. The chart factors in the expiring payroll tax cuts

The changes to the lower incomes are primarily the expiring payroll tax cuts.

Between $110,000 and $200,000 there are no payroll taxes.

[Fumesucker]

6. I did notice that

I'm sure it will be a big consolation to those making under $10,000 a year.

Shared sacrifice is so ennobling.

[ProSense]

7. The payroll tax cuts were temporary

"I'm sure it will be a big consolation to those making under $10,000 a year. "

Did you want to continue the situation in which the tax cuts were extended and the general revenue used to replenish the Social Security Trust Fund?

There is other aid in the package for low-income Americans: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022118640

And other taxes for the wealthy: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022116613

[Fumesucker]

8. This ain't my first DU rodeo

Everyone needs to have skin in the game, even if their scrofulous hide is all they have left.

[hfojvt]

4. a deceptive baseline

what happens to taxes if the Bush tax cuts expire?

Which they did - for about twelve hours, before Obama brought them back to life for some reason.

[ProSense]

5. "what happens to taxes if the Bush tax cuts expire?"

You keep wanting to see something that was never going to be negotiated. Even if we had gone over the cliff, the tax cuts on incomes below $250,000 would still be pushed through.

[hfojvt]

9. I know, silly me

I keep wanting Democrats to fight for something progressive.

I should be like you and just accept that that is never gonna happen.

Embrace the new Republican-lite party, economically indistinguishable from the old Republican Party, and believe that tax cuts for the rich are really tax increases on the rich.

Once our corporate masters take me to room 101, I am sure I will see the light.

[cthulu2016]

10. This deal is far more progressive than letting the Bush cuts expire

High taxation is not a progressive value. Cutting deficits in a depressed economy is certainly not a progressive value.

Increasing the % difference in what is paid on $30k versus what is paid on $10 million is a core progressive value. A real idealogical value.

Te tax code, post deal, is more progressive (literally) than it was in 2012, or during the hours the Bush cuts had expired.

[hfojvt]

11. sure it is

and tax cuts of $10,000 for people in the top 5% are really smaller than the tax cuts of $270 (not including the payroll tax increase) for people in the bottom 20%.

That's a progressive tax cut.

Sure it is.

Oh, and how about the difference in what is paid on $30,000 versus what is paid on $300,000?

Should there be any progressivity there?

But I would have like to see a President who would let the Bush tax cuts expire AND fight for tax cuts favoring those at the bottom.

An impossible dream, I know.

The Democratic Party serves the haves, not the have-nots.

[ProSense]

12. You're making up stuff. n/t

[hfojvt]

15. your argument is not with me

CTJ calculates. I just report. http://ctj.org/pdf/bidenmcconnelldeal.pdf

As for the Democratic Party serving "the haves". Well, from where I sit, and where people below the median income sit, a couple making $240,000 looks like a "have". And it seemed to be Obama's #1 concern that such a couple should NOT have to pay higher taxes.

It just would not do if such a struggling family had to pay an extra hundred dollars in taxes.

[cthulu2016]

13. I favor a minimum income. I'm a socialist of some stripe.

But the US tax code is more progressive today than it was on January 1. That's not a value judgment, it is just what it is.

Now, the payroll tax holiday is another matter and that's something I feel strongly about. I do not think the US economy of January 2013 is the right time for all working people to see a reduction in take-home pay.

That should holiday should have been extended OR replaced with something that provided the same size and quality of stimulus to the working class. (The payroll holiday is so efficient that its hard to imagine a suitable replacement, but my concern here is the total take home pay of the working and middle classes as a factor in the US economy, so anything that got the same number of federal deficit-financed dollars spent by ordinary folks in the real economy would be an okay replacement.)

[hfojvt]

14. you can be as socialist as you want

but it is just silly to say that the tax code become more progressive by giving bigger tax cuts to people with higher incomes.

That is not a good definition of progressive.

It reminds me of George W. Bush arguing that his tax cuts made the tax code more progressive.

Right, tax cuts that favor the rich make the tax system more progressive.

Tell me another one. Do tax cuts also lead to higher revenue too, and job creation?

Taxing dividends at 20% (the deal) is more progressive than taxing them at 39.6% (if the Bush tax cuts had expired)? Who knew that lower tax rates for the rich created more progressive taxes?

[Amonester]

16. Maybe it was the price to pay for bringing all those R Senators onboard...

So the teaRoarists in the House would finally get the medecine they fully deserve.

The ultimate goal was to make sure the 2008 financial meltdown would not occur again (so soon).

That is not to say it won't happen again later, but it's been put on hold until then.

[hfojvt]

18. ending the Bush tax cuts would not cause a financial meltdown

neither would the sequester.

But is is always nice to have an excuse to give tax cuts to the rich, isn't it?

[Amonester]

19. I guess you didn't read my headline, so I'll repeat. No need to thank me (or to reply).

Maybe it was the price to pay to get all those R senators onboard, so the teaRoarists in the House would finally get the wack they've been deserving for so long.

[quaker bill]

20. Folks at higher incomes will pay more taxes

in 2013 than they paid in 2012. It is not a tax cut when the amount you owe increases. I got a "tax cut" and will be paying more money to the Feds as a result.

If they had boosted the rates back to the 70 to 90 really old percent ranges, I would have been paying even more. They did not do that, so the rates are not truly "progressive"?

Of course your argument is that the rates were somewhat higher for 12 hours, so it is a "tax cut" in the Norquistian sense. The weakness of this argument is that if the package had been passed 24 hours earlier, you would have to call the exact same deal a "progressive tax increase".

This is a silly argument about semantics. Rich people will be paying more taxes. I am not rich, just a bit above the median, but I will be paying more taxes too.

[W_HAMILTON]

17. Our tax system was more progressive for the day or so we were off the fiscal cliff.

Now that the fiscal cliff deal has been signed into law, our tax system is less progressive than it had become at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2013.

I was just discussing this with another poster and found the following chart (from the same Tax Policy Center) that demonstrates this. If we had stayed as-is and then extended the Bush tax cuts for those making under $250k (as was inevitable as some around here have said), this chart would have leaned even more heavily towards the lower-end, making it an even more progressive tax system.

[img][/img]