RE: Help with a Minimum Wage Model

From: matus (matus@snet.net)
Date: Mon Apr 07 2003 - 00:53:29 MDT

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    Lee Corbin wrote:
    > or, taxes amounting to (797 + 186 + 518)/12854 = 11.7 percent.
    >
    > Shocking, really. There's no escape even for the poor---this is
    > even a little beyond the tithe extracted by theocracies!
    >

    Charles wrote:
    > I don't have any direct experience, but I seem to remember that anyone
    > earning more than $750 a year had to pay income tax.

    I have in front of me the Kiplinger Tax Letter, Dated Nov 8, 2002. It says:

            "High Incomers are paying an even larger share of income taxes than in past
    years, according to the new IRS data from tax returns for 2000, the most
    recent set it has analyzed.
            The top 1% of filers paid 37% percent of all income taxes, up from 36% the
    year before. But they made just 21% of the total adjusted gross income. An
    AGI of at least $313,400 was needed to be classified in the top 1%.
            The top 5% paid 56% of the total income taxes, and made 35% of all AGI.
    The each had an income of $128,300 or more. The upper 10% of all filers,
    those with an AGI of at least $92,100 bore 67% of the income tax burden.
            The bottom 50% of filers paid just 4% of income taxes in 2000."

    While I am opposed to progressive taxes, (and involuntary taxation for that
    matter) if we are going to have both, then I have a suggestion. Why not
    just elimate that bottom 50% of wage earners from the income tax, I mean,
    c'mon! It would amount to a 4% tax cut to income tax revenue, some of which
    would be negated by how much would be saved by the IRS only dealing with 140
    million people instead of 280 million. Any politician who proposed this on
    a presidential ticket could get 140 million votes. This would be a
    particularly wise move for republicans in congress to present, as the
    overall change in the tax burden is minimal (or nill if a 4% budget cut is
    associated with the relief for the bottom 50% of wage earners) and Democrats
    will have a significant thing to whine about wiped off their agenda. Though
    they still may cry 'those tax cuts only benefit the rich' if any further
    cuts occur.

    Michael Dickey

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