1999 vs. 2008; How are YOUR taxes doing?
Taxes…You will find these statistics enlightening:
www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
(you can verify the numbers here)
Taxes under Clinton 1999:
Single making 30K – tax $8,400
Single making 50K – tax $14,000
Single making 75K – tax $23,250
Married making 60K – tax $16,800
Married making 75K – tax $21,000
Married making 125K – tax $38,750
Taxes under Bush 2008:
Single making 30K – tax $4,500
Single making 50K – tax $12,500
Single making 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 125K – tax $31,250
It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts, and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen.
Just an Easter Eve thought, everyone.
Best,
Chuck
…a successful war, a thriving economy, no one is losing their homes, gas/home heating costs are cheap, people aren’t loosing good paying jobs forced to work more hours for lower hourly wages, the price of milk, bread, and other foods are reasonable, wages provide unparalleled purchasing power, health care isn’t a mess, the economy isn’t hemorrhaging jobs…
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p>FOUR MORE YEARS OF BUSH!
Feel better now? Little relevancy to the discussion, but hey, tblade, if it makes you feel better đŸ™‚
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p>In any event, I am not championing four more years of Bush. I am championing the libertarian position that tax relief should be made permanent.
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p>Best,
Chuck
I went to the web site you linked, and I read the chart myself. Here are a few of the numbers:
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p> Clinton Bush
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p>Single $30K 3,157 2,756
Single $50K 7,262 6,606
Single $75K 14,262 12,856
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p>The rest of the chart follows the same trend, that is the taxes are lower than you state, and the difference between the two eras are much smaller. The following comment is made on the web site.
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p>
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p>I mean, really.
I only scanned the OP but I immedietly thought that my experiences were quite different ..
The few bucks you mentioned seems more consistant with reality … 4-500$ .. these days how would anyone notice.
Depends on where you pull your numbers, doesn’t it? You see, the tables in the referenced tables are annually adjusted for inflation. The last line in your referenced text allows for this. In any event, the basic message is correct, as the referenced text also states.
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p>Best,
Chuck
No, the basic message is that your post was b*st, and so is this comment.
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p>”The tables in the referenced tables are annually adjusted for inflation” — no, it’s actually the tax code that’s adjusted for inflation. For example, in 1996 the 31% tax bracket started at $96,900. in 1999 the same bracket started at $104,050, although there was no change to the tax law during that interval. The brackets themselves adjust annually. I could whip up some numbers showing that somebody who earned $30K in 1999 paid less tax than somebody who earned $30K in 1993 under the exact same tax code. Does that mean a damn thing? Well, no.
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p>Which means that doing a straight apples to apples comparison of 1999 and 2008 is a bit trickier. It would be fairer to say that $30,000 in 1999 is now equivalent to $38,823.53 — how much would a 2008 tax payer have to pay on that income? Is that more or less than $4086.18 (which is $3157.50 similarly adjusted for inflation)?
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p>And even if, after all this math, the taxes prove to actually be lower by a smidgen (I doubt it’d be more than a couple of hundred bucks even so), has the cost to the country, economy and environment been worth it?
Doesn’t sound like much, huh? But that was your intent.
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p>Look at the tables again. You will note several things:
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p>First, in 2002, a new tax bracket was added — 10%. This bracket was for our poorest citizens, or at least for those with AGI’s under $12,000. Other brackets adjusted for inflation, pretty much as usual. Marginal tax rates were decreased slightly for all brackets above 15%.
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p>In 2003,the marginal rate of 10% was applied to a much higher AGI of $14,000. For someone paying taxes on $14,000, this meant substantial relief indeed — on a percentage basis. Note also that the other marginal tax rate brackets were jumped quite a bit, with the middle class taxpayers getting the lion’s share of tax relief, and the top brackets being reduced by a couople of percentage points. This impacted Upper Middle Class taxpayers the most; while the filthy rich received some relief, they continued to pay the lion’s share of taxes in this country. (See the tax tables.)
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p>Contrast this with the Clinton-Gingrich-era tax law of 1997, when the lowest 20% of taxpayers actually saw a tax HIKE, and the upper income brackets saw their taxes FALL by:
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p>31.5% for the 81st thru 95th %tiles;
14% for the 96-99th %tiles; and
32.4 percent for the top 1% of incomes!
(Please see the link below.)
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p>’. . . Clinton has publicly stated that he thinks the 1986 reforms “went too far.” Indeed, Clinton’s June 1993 description of his 1993 deficit-reducing upper-income tax increase aptly sums up his tax philosophy: “We raised tax rates, but we tried to find ways for people who’ve been successful, who have money, to lower their taxes.”‘
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p>http://www.ctj.org/html/desc97…
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p>The tax rates are where they should be. Our spending is not. Further, if the past is any indication (see above), any tinkering with the rates would probably see the lower and middle income people taking it in the shorts again.
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p>For all its blather, Big Liberal Government has NEVER been on the side of the little guy!
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p>Best,
Chuck
…the 6 Trillion Dollar increase in our National debt used to off set those decreases. Truth’s a bitch ain’t it, but hey, that’s the kid’s problem.
though not for the reason the original poster probably intended.
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p>The numbers, as DaveS noted, are a fabrication, circulated hotly over the internet by blogs and emails as part of the wingnut system of self hypnosis.
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p>I am a pack rat and still have my 1999 tax return. It’s a pretty normal return–no big fancy deductions or anything. Then, for my family, $65k of income translated into $5500 of Federal taxes, less than a third of what the fantasy numbers say I paid.
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p>So what’s interesting to me is the spectacle of all these people, like the original poster, scouring the internet for lies that corroborate what they’d like to believe was true, for many in the face of their actual experience. I knew instantly that these “facts” were way, way wrong. Don’t any of these people pay taxes themselves?
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p>And why do they so desperately need to believe that things were so bad then anyway?
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p>It’s an ugly picture, an echo chamber of mirrors, a virtual political reality, in which every fact is subordinate to ideology.
understand that each set of circumstances will vary. You, or your tax advisor, found enough deductions, deferments or whatever, to reduce your tax liability to a much lower level on your cited 1999 return. Good for you!
But all such numbers are based on specific assumptions. As the label reads, “Yopur experience may vary.”
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p>Best,
Chuck
The Tax Foundation referral page in my original post contains a link to another of the Tax Foundation’s pages, where the tax foundation’s own numbers bear out pretty much that taxes are lower under the current president than under Clinton. The percentages range from a low of 9.93% up to 26.73%. The numbers favor married taxpayers (most of whom support children), and lower-income taxpayers (most of whom, I think you will all agree, need the break).
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p>http://www.taxfoundation.org/b…
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p>In 2003, the Tax Foundation issued a “Special Report,”
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p>http://www.taxfoundation.org/f…
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p>illustrating the effect of making the then-almost-new tax cuts permanent, for a family of four. You will note, I am quite sure, that the effect of the “non-permanentized” tax cuts grows smaller and smaller each year as a percentage of savings – until the chart reaches the year 2010, at which point the current relief disappears.
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p>A driving factor in the reluctance of the liberal Left to support permanent relief is the Social Security program. During a sixty-year period of our recent history, the liberal Democrats pretty much ran Congress. Today, among other Entitlement Programs, we have Social Security, a legacy from Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” and which program has become a mainstay fixture in the retirement planning of a goodly portion of our citizenry. But, there really is no free lunch. The program now faces financial uncertainty, as there are more “Boomers” than Boomer offspring, which, in turn means that there will be a horrendous drawdown of program assets, as so few must support so many.
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p>A number of “Doomsday Dates” for Social Security are being bandied about these days; most center around two likely events. The first is 2018, when actuarial projections illustrate the system will go from net annual gains to net annual reductions. The second of these will occur in 2042, when the system will no longer be able to pay its bills. This CEA report
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p>http://www.whitehouse.gov/news…
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p>contains the details and assumptions used in making the estimates, and are, at least, working numbers; again, depending on fiscal realities, these dates may vary somewhat.
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p>But the fiscal irresponsibility is not stemming from the moderates’ and conservatives’ desires to make the tax relief permanent. Rather, the Trust Fund income was, and continues to be, raided by the government, in exchange for government-backed bonds. Please see
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p>http://www.mises.org/story/1820
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p>for an interesting discussion on Professor Charley Rounds’ not-very-flattering opinion of these securities.
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p>Like Charley, I’m not too sure about the Government’s IOU’s to itself. While the bonds are backed by “the full faith and credit” of the US Government, I’m not feeling very warm and fuzzy about the government’s ability to make good on all those promises. And, like Charley, I’m not at all sure that I want to toss my hard-earned tax dollars to a liberal Congress, when liberal congresses have proven throughout the years to be incapable of any sort of fiscal honesty.
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p>Best,
Chuck
How are your future social security benefits? How are your local property taxes? How are your energy bills? How is your stock portfolio (if you are lucky enough to have one)?
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p>It’s pretty easy to lower everyone’s taxes if you are willing to make future generations pay and we are already beginning to pay now.
which is a problem. As a Libertarian, I felt it was MY responsibility to provide for my retirement, and did so. As a taxpayer (albeit often under protest!) I paid my FICA taxes for 47 years, and continue to pay them for businesses I operate in retirement. I am therefore eligible to draw Social Security benefits (most of which I give back; I won’t see a full check for another few years, when I turn 70).
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p>But I digress. The problem is not with the idea of taxation, the problem is with the elusive definitions of such things as; The Common Defense; The General Welfare; the cost of Establishing Justice; the government’s responsibility for Domestic Tranquility; and finally the cost of Ensuring Liberty. Getting 100 or 535 people in the Senate and House, respectively, to agree on these definitions is like stacking water. And if it were possible to get such an agreement hammered out, the Phase Two problem would be priorities and funding levels, which is why we spend probably twice as much — or more — as we should.
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p>Illigitimate earmarks for building bridges to nowhere, or enhancing some sort of nonexistent instrumentation facility (a Murtha boondoggle) exacerbate the problem, and dilute the needed resources. We cannot fund what we need to fund, let alone all this chicanery — for which the Republicans are just as culpable as the Democrats.
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p>Fiscal discipline inside the Beltway is nonexistent. The same is true of our State Houses. Until and unless this changes, I cannot feel responsible for the fiscal mess in Washington or the State Capitols — and I certainly cannot bring myself to believe that throwing more money at the problem is a good idea!
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p>Best,
Chuck
because my spouse and i are not allowed to file federal taxes jointly. the federal defense of marriage act is more appropriately called “the federal theft from homos act”.
over and over and over again, mah frien’
That Ya don’t believe we’re on the Eve of Destruckshin.”
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p>Bobby Dylan, ca. 1963
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p>Laws and Rules CAN be changed, Laurel, however it is no more possible to UN’legislate morality than to legislate it! The Conervative Right believes it holds the high moral ground, and has its heels dug in. The more you beat that horse, the more recalcitrant it becomes.
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p>The Conservative Right is not likely to change its mind, and neither are you. Perhaps you could find a way not to impose a perceived threat to their concept of marriage? (I believe we’ve had that discussion before!)
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p>Best,
Chuck
Try Barry McGuire 7/19/65
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p>
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p>Nothing new about conservatives dumping on those they don’t agree with.
I have a tape showing Bobby Dylan performing the song at a concert. Some of the tape was recorded in 1963, and apparently the remainder is from other concerts. During the time period when those concerts were held, I was in Viet Nam and Lebanon.
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p>My mistake. Sorry about that.
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p>Best.
Chuck
If, because you can’t “file married filing joint”, you are unfairly overtaxed, you prepare your taxes both ways: both single, then married filing joint. You might be surprised. There still exists a ‘marriage penalty’ for two wage earners with similar earnings. The Defense of Marriage Act might actually be saving you money.
if only we could get some benefit from it, but alas no. for us it sucketh in totality.
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p>but to the extent that it might be saving some s-s couples taxes, you heteros should be crying foul and demanding repeal so that we homos don’t have these special tax-evading rights. only heterosexuals deserve special rights in this country, dammit, and if they can’t have ’em, then no one can!!! đŸ˜€
They’re enjoying their trip through an Iraq reconstruction slush fund, and have heard great things from their relatives who are fattening up a billionaire’s bank account nicely.