Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax

FWIW:
I am a single late 20s male, I made 30k last year and I received 1K$ back from federal and 100 from Oregon. I am definitely not the rich, but probably not really poor either?

 

...
you can get college funds that are non-taxable until you take the money out.
You can get write-offs for donations
you can get non-taxable retirement funds until you take them out.
there was a first time home buyer credit of 5k or 10k I believe.

 

I stopped reading right here, because it has been shown to be false over and over and over...

Please show that according to real metrics, the bottom 10% of this country are worse off today than they were in the 60's.

At some point you're going to need to stop making everybody else carry the burden of your lack of intelligence.

 

Is that $1k net or gross?

 

I see your point of view, but people either will or won't donate to charities. The write off is usually non existent anyway due to the rules.

I dunno, many congressmen I respect (somewhat, anyways) are much in favor of a flat tax and I think it would greatly simplify taxes, easily increase tax revenues and put a lot more money in people's hands- why is that so bad?

 

I earned 30K before taxes. I received a check for 1k$. I am a physics major, not an econ major so I don't know the difference between the two words. I will assume net is like they took out 2000$ and only gave me back 1000, so I lost a net of 1000?

 

Because I think it is skewed to help the rich from an overall standpoint. If I make 200k a year and I lose 100k I still have 100k which is quite livable IMO. If I make 20K a year and lose 10k I only have 10k to live off. That is not livable.

 

Correct.

Did you have more than $1k deducted throughout the year?

 

It all depends what you mean by "help" the rich. Do you mean "help" as in not having the middle class pay ~40% of their income while half the country pays zero?

 

A 7% tax makes less money livable.

 

seriously dude. What country could POSSIBLY run on 7%?!? You could barely afford to buy guns for your army, let alone tanks/jets/spaceships/boats.

 

I honestly don't remember, but I think it was about a net loss of 2k$ I'll check when I'm at home.

 

What number are you using for total personal income and corporate profit in this country?

 

So you paid about 6.6% income tax? Is that just federal or are you including state?

 

I think that right now, taxes in general should be a little lower. I would prefer if there were higher tariffs on imported goods. When the economy starts improving, and the unemployment level gets down to about 6%, I would want to raise taxes on all of the economic classes, maybe not the bottom 15%.

Generally speaking I think that the rich are the backbone of society, but the middle class determine a prosperous country from an average country.

 

Just to be clear, you think that if the whole country was only taxed 7%, you think this country could be run with an average sized military and average quality roads?

I believe the GDP is about 1trillion dollars, but I don't know if that's what you're asking?

 

I'm going to stop answering until I can go home and give you accurate information!

 

Try following the thread. I was responding to implementing a flat tax and how that would eliminate college funds, write off for donations and saving for retirement.

But thanks for letting me know there is currently not a flat tax in place . . . learn something new everyday, like posters respond to posts without really reading them.