Tax me once, shame on you...
To all Republicans, Libertarians, fiscal conservatives, et al:
Why do you guys make fools of yourselves on national TV (if Fox News qualifies as such) when discussing taxation? So I'm watching an indoctrination session put on by Neil Cavuto and some hack from a conservative think-tank talking about how the tax burden is unfair. His evidence? IRS tax stats from 2002.
Basic argument: Top 1% of tax earners pay 33% of aggregate revenue to IRS.
This is about as idiotic a mistake as you can make without being in 5th grade math. Let's go over some basic terminology. When you say top XX percent, you are actually talking about a percentile. Top 1% = top 1 person out of 100. The latter is an actual percentage. 33% = 1/3 of total. So, 1/3 of money comes from 99th percentile. Why does this matter? Why is this relevante to a fair taxation policy? It's not that's the answer. If you want a fair comparison then you look at the share of the national income earned by the 99th percentile. They earn for example 20% of all the income in the nation, but pay 33% of the taxes...hmmm sounds unfair. Or maybe they earn 75% of all the income in the nation and pay 33% of taxes...hmm sounds unfair in the other direction. I don't know what the stats are and I don't care. I'd just expect people to understand basic principles of statistics when they're working at a think-tank rather than spouting off meaningless numbers that have no bearing on the argument one way or another.
Just to make my point clear, even if there was a flat tax rate, as conservatives like Forbes advocate, THE TOP 1% WOULD STILL HAVE THE OVERWHELMING TAX BURDEN. Get it? Use better stats please. It's not too much to ask...unless you're Fox News.
Why do you guys make fools of yourselves on national TV (if Fox News qualifies as such) when discussing taxation? So I'm watching an indoctrination session put on by Neil Cavuto and some hack from a conservative think-tank talking about how the tax burden is unfair. His evidence? IRS tax stats from 2002.
Basic argument: Top 1% of tax earners pay 33% of aggregate revenue to IRS.
This is about as idiotic a mistake as you can make without being in 5th grade math. Let's go over some basic terminology. When you say top XX percent, you are actually talking about a percentile. Top 1% = top 1 person out of 100. The latter is an actual percentage. 33% = 1/3 of total. So, 1/3 of money comes from 99th percentile. Why does this matter? Why is this relevante to a fair taxation policy? It's not that's the answer. If you want a fair comparison then you look at the share of the national income earned by the 99th percentile. They earn for example 20% of all the income in the nation, but pay 33% of the taxes...hmmm sounds unfair. Or maybe they earn 75% of all the income in the nation and pay 33% of taxes...hmm sounds unfair in the other direction. I don't know what the stats are and I don't care. I'd just expect people to understand basic principles of statistics when they're working at a think-tank rather than spouting off meaningless numbers that have no bearing on the argument one way or another.
Just to make my point clear, even if there was a flat tax rate, as conservatives like Forbes advocate, THE TOP 1% WOULD STILL HAVE THE OVERWHELMING TAX BURDEN. Get it? Use better stats please. It's not too much to ask...unless you're Fox News.
Labels: Rabid Conservatives
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 10:15 PM
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