Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Lets change the headers to reflect the content(Please)

[Ric Rainbolt (ricrainbolt]

   Sorry, but this wreaks of cherry picked numbers.
   In the first section, they talk about the top 400 richest taxpayers.
   What the heck kind of sample is that? The top 400 probably have the
   MOST access to shelters and probably 95% of their income is capital
   gains, NOT wages. So 27% is actually "about right" in terms of the tax
   code. This TINY group paid $16 BILLION in taxes, according to their
   own numbers.
   Also, if you look a the graph in the section "Who Pays Taxes?" You can
   clearly see, as percentage, the top 400 pay a much higher percentage
   of Federal Taxes (blue section), it's only Social Security (green
   section) that makes the huge difference.
   The next section talks about the top 0.01% of the population,
   income-wise. These samples represent a tiny, tiny fraction of the
   population and a very small amount of the total tax burden.
   As for the top 13,400 richest, I don't care what kind of laws you
   pass, you're not going the get their money, they're going to keep
   getting richer as well. They have the means and the staff to safely
   guard their collective wealth. If you pass laws to try to punish, err
   "Access" their wealth, you're only going to damage people making much
   less, such as the aforementioned upper 10% of wage earners. The
   ultra-wealthy can always move money around the world and exploit all
   available global shelters.
   With insane quotes like this: "The Federal Estate tax is the only tax
   that directly combats the problem of excessive wealth accumulation."
   it's easy to see where this article's writer(s) loyalties lie.
   Picking the top 0.01% (or worse yet, the top 400) is designed purely
   to enrage Joe Plumber's envy and incite class warfare. If you look at
   the actual dollar amounts this group pays, it probably dwarfs the
   lower 20, 30 or 40 percentiles.
   Showing state and local taxes as a percentage of household income is
   misleading, because they're usually property taxes, which is a
   fixed-rate tax in most circumstances.
   I also find it quite curious that they use different date ranges to
   illustrate different points. This is usually a hallmark of cherry
   picking, as you get to pick the means and extremes that best support
   your claims.
   Also this doozey: "Income distribution in the United States is the
   most unequal among all developed nations, according to OECD data." The
   If you want unbiased numbers, to read from yourself, without editorial
   bias. Check out the web sites of the CBO or IRS. All the data is
   available in tabular format, and is broken down into reasonable groups
   (5, 10 and 20 percentile groups).
   RR
   At 10:36 PM 11/15/2008, LarryT wrote:

     Here's some charts and info that purports to be accurate for year
     2000.
     [1]http://www.askquestions.org/articles/taxes/
     As someone said, figures lie and liars figure - so be careful how
     you read
     it.
     So I assme there's more than 1 way to put these numbers together -
     Enjoy
     Sincerely,
     Larry T  (74 911, 91 300D 2.5T)
     [2]www.youroil.net Oil Analysis Kits &
     Porsche Posters/Weber parts

References

   1. http://www.askquestions.org/articles/taxes/
   2. http://www.youroil.net/