Hastert: "If You Earn $40,000 a Year and Have a Family of Two Children, You Don't Pay Any Taxes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecMpgYvKLng
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dragonfly @ Oct 25 2006, 04:34 PM) [snapback]338215[/snapback]</div> I can't watch the video, but it does seem like an idiotic statement on the face of it. Maybe you don't pay federal income taxes if you meet those criteria, which I doubt, but seems like the only thing that could make his statement make sense.
He was talking about a person who makes $40,000 and has a spouse and two children. This is what someone responded with to show that someone making $40,000 with a spouse and two children really doesn't pay any taxes. I don't know how accurate these figures are so I can't say. I find it a bit hard to believe, but does anyone have a rebuttal to those figures? Vince
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dragonfly @ Oct 25 2006, 06:33 PM) [snapback]338299[/snapback]</div> Oh my God! Maybe some of the other things that Republicans say are true!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dragonfly @ Oct 25 2006, 03:33 PM) [snapback]338299[/snapback]</div> Don't forget state sales taxes, FICA, Medicare, possible state income taxes, federal excise taxes on a number of goods & services (telephone, tires, gasoline, etc.) and, if you own property, property taxes. In recent decades various "proxy" taxes have also grown in the form of increased fines and penalties, and fees charged by assorted gov't agencies to process transactions that used to be paid out of the agencies' budgets. I just paid $10 to take care of a "fixit" ticket, for example - the $10 wasn't a fine, just a fee. So the true tax burden on a $40K income could approach 20%, having ducked only the federal income tax. I make well over $40K/yr and am single with no kids, plus my house is paid for, so I get walloped when it comes to taxes: just over 50% of my annual income goes to some government agency in one form or another. With overall gov't expenditure at 25% GDP or whatever it is, someone isn't paying their fair share while I carry twice the normal share. That someone, however, is NOT the $40K family that is escaping only a federal income tax - that someone is a combination of the wealthy and corporations, whose share of the total tax intake has shrunk substantially in the last decades. Mark Baird Alameda CA
And wages as a percent of GDP is at an all-time low and on a downward slump. http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/...ages_chart.html
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Oct 25 2006, 11:12 PM) [snapback]338392[/snapback]</div> You beat me to it on this one. The state and county/city taxes seem to be compensating for any cuts in federal taxes. Not that I'm complaining, I've lived in places with lower taxes and lower services, and I'd much rather have roads, schools, parks, police force etc.
I believe that family of 4 would pay about $2000 unless the kids are under age 13, then they pay 0. Hastert's is a 'gotchya' statement to divert attention away from the fact that most wealthy families pay little to no tax and corps too, If our theoretical family paid $2000, that's about 5% of their income in tax. The same family making, say $1,000,000 at 5% tax would pay $50,000. Which family income would you rather have? Or in 'gotchya' terms, would you rather pay 2000 or 50000? Of course the answer is 50000. When ever ANYONE talks numbers, percentages or statistics, BEWARE. When a politician talks like that be DOUBLY AWARE. In the end of the day it's how much you KEEP, not how much you PAY that's important.
