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Claim That Rich Don't Pay Enough Based on Perception, Not Fact

The claim that the rich don't pay enough taxes is based on perception, not fact

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"47 percent of households pay no federal income taxes."

Are you stupid or what?

The bottom 40 percent barely make enough money to eat, have shelter and energy. The top 5% have enough loot to lite their cigars with hundred dollar bills.

Yeah, I reckon they can pay more. The country is broke slash spending and raise taxes on the top 5% by 5%.

They only jobs those guys create are in China anyway.

That's got a nice ring to it.

R.L. Schaefer of CA 7:36PM December 19, 2011

right on. Why do the candidates not talk with kind of data when they repute the democratic (The President) claims.

Eldon Joersz of TX 4:23PM December 19, 2011

The hyperlinks in the commentary did not show up online. For those interested in seeing the data for themselves, the IRS data can be found here:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in01etr.xls

and the Tax Policy Center data here:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/federal-taxes-households.cfm

Jason Fichtner of VA 8:22AM December 17, 2011

Also omitted from the above are the huge deductions that the rich take. They make millions, but then deduct millions before calculating their "adjusted" gross income (which is what they're taxed on). So, a high tax rate on AGI does not necessarily make up for the fact that their AGI is a low percentage of their actual income.

Brett Glass of WY 5:21PM December 16, 2011