DearAbby (1000+ posts) Wed May-18-11 02:57 PM
Original message
Appalling Greed: Richest 400 Average $270.5 Million Incomes, Pay Almost Nothing in Taxes
In 2008, the IRS revealed last week, 400 Americans reported at least $110 million in income on their federal tax returns. These 400, in a year that ended with millions of Americans out of work and home, averaged $270.5 million each, the second-highest U.S. top 400 average income on record.
The IRS only started reporting top 400 income calculations in 2003, and the agency's official “top 400†totals just go back to 1992. But older IRS data reports do make top 400 estimates from some earlier years possible. And these earlier figures leave the latest IRS numbers in even starker relief.
In 1955, for instance, America's top 400 averaged — in 2008 dollars — $13.3 million. In other words, the top 400 in 2008 reported incomes that, after taking inflation into account, amounted to more than 20 times the incomes of America’s top 400 a half-century ago.
More:http://www.alternet.org/economy/150956/appalling_greed:...
kentuck (1000+ posts) Wed May-18-11 03:01 PM
Response to Original message
1. You can defend the Democrats if you want...
But we need a political Party that will address this disparity and make it an issue in every election until these leeches pay their fair share of taxes.
Leeches?
How much of that money is stuffed in a mattress vs. recirculated back into the economy ether as charity or investments?
leftstreet (1000+ posts) Wed May-18-11 03:03 PM
Response to Original message
2. It's not greed, it's how capitalism works n/t
At least they're investing it.
What is your claim to their money?
Oh that's right: because you want it.
That's all the excuse you little goose-steppers need.
Jefferson23 (1000+ posts) Wed May-18-11 03:11 PM
Response to Original message
4. Oh come on, it all trickles down to the needy. They buy so much
with their money, they keep the economy robust and such.
"The main reason: Today’s rich are getting more and more of their income from capital gains — the profits from buying and selling stocks, bonds, and other assets — and these capital gains now face a substantially lower tax rate than they did two decades ago."
Gee, I wonder how they got to keep this hideous advantage in place for so long.
OK shit bird,
What happens when that money is pulled out of the economy and it no longer is invested in people trying to operate businesses?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1128036$270 million x 400 = $108 billion
Federal deficit = $1,700 billion
Taxing them 100% would yield 6.3% of the deficit for 1 year and you could only do it for 1 year because then they would own nothing to generate their income.
