Alexander Eichler of The Huffington Post thinks he has a juicy scoop. In a post titled American Millionaires: 1,400 Paid No U.S. Income Taxes in 2009 he reports:
New tax data from the IRS shows that in 2009, incomes fell, unemployment claims rose, and the U.S. economy shed nearly two million taxpayers. And of the 235,413 taxpayers who earned $1 million or more in 2009, 1,470 of them paid no taxes.
This may be a scoop, but it’s not the one Eichler wants it to be.
If you have been listening to the anti-rich, pro-tax crowd for the last two years you might be excused for thinking that most millionaires are tax scofflaws and aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. But, as Eichler’s post shows, the left’s demonization of the rich has been nothing more than a canard. The real scoop here is that 99.33% of millionaires pay taxes while only 50% of non-millionaires do so.
Now tell me again who is not paying their fair share.¹
Footnotes:
¹ To put this in perspective let’s compare some other percentages that should cause the left more concern than the trivial .6% of American millionaires who don’t pay income taxes:
- Only 85% of Americans over the age of 25 have high school diplomas
- Only 70% of American children live in two-parent homes
- Only 66% of Teenaged girls don’t become pregnant before the age of 20
- Only 95% of Black males are not in prison (compared to 99.3% of white males)
- Only 83% of American workers don’t work for state, local or federal government
Related Posts:
- Who Pays Taxes: Top 1% Pay More than Bottom 95%
- The Shared Sacrifice Lie
- 51% of American Taxpayers Pay Zero Taxes; Share of Government Funded by the Rich Increases
1 response so far ↓
1 Wizard Prang // Sep 29, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Also: those who paid no income tax did so because either a) they gave so much money away or b) They were taxed overseas, and that was deducted from their US tax bill.