From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2003 - 12:04:26 MDT
owner-extropians@extropy.org wrote:
> Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>
>> ...
>>
>> ### People living on minimum wages do not pay direct taxes.
>>
> ...
>
> 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. And I know that
> in college when I was working for $5.00 per hour for short hours I
> still had income tax withheld, even though my projected yearly income
> would have been *far* below poverty. (I wasn't a full time job.)
> But there could be some special rule about people earning minimum
> wage that I never encountered.
>
> My inclination, however, is to doubt your assertion. Do you have
> particular knowledge indicating that it is true, or is it just "it
> doesn't seem reasonable"?
>
> OTOH, I haven't read that section of the tax manual for many decades.
> (I assume that you could tell by the $750. That's *got* to be out of
> date!)
### Oops, I guess I screwed up here to some extent. Apparently even at
minimum wage level it is possible to pay some taxes, although the actual
amounts, both as a percentage and absolute numbers, are tiny, and the amount
received in entitlements and the use of public goods received by the poor
vastly exceeds their contribution to the economy.
However, this was only a side remark, not particularly relevant to the
question of whether minimum wage laws are an efficient method of subsidizing
the poor.
Rafal
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