Tax the Rich - They Need to Pay their Fair Share

The President and the accomplice media continue to say the solution to all of our fiscal problems is to simply tax the rich.  The President claims the the rich need to pay their fair share.  What the President fails to provide is any facts when he reads from his teleprompter and the media is no better.  There was a time when the media was the great equalizer in this country, they actually investigated stories, dug into details and presented their findings relative to what was being claimed. 

Alas those days are long gone and now it is up to us to do the homework and point out the facts.  While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they are not entitled to their own facts.

Let's start by examining the constant cry from the President for the rich to pay their fair share.  So first we have to agree on what is considered rich?  If you listen to the President that is hard to tell because in his first campaign, and his first years in office, the rich were considered those making over $1 million a year.  Now it appears as though the definition of millionaires has been changed to those making $250,000 or more.  Just listen to the President, he constantly says millionaires need to pay more in taxes and then you see what he proposes and it is clearly aimed at those making $250,000 or more.  So are we talking about millionaires or not?

Despite the rhetoric of the President, for purposes of this column we are going to assume the rich are defined as those individuals making at least $250,000 per year.  So, how much in taxes does this group pay?  To find this out one simply needs to go to IRS.GOV.  There are a number of tables you can view that show detailed tax data.

In 2009, the last year for which detailed data is available, people with Adjusted Gross Income of $250,000 or more paid $434 billion in taxes.  In total the government collected $865 billion in tax revenues from individuals.  So the group that we are so worried about paying their fair share actually provided over 50% of the total tax revenue from individuals. 

Below is a break down of the information by each income group.

As you can clearly see from the tables above, people earning over $250,000 made up less than 2% of the total tax returns in 2009, but they paid 50% of all the taxes.  So, if this isn't fair what should this be - 75%, 90%?  Also notice that people earning over $1 million are paying on average, just under $750,000 in taxes, while those earning $250,000 or more are paying nearly $100,000 in taxes on average.  Plus, the effective tax rates for those earning over $250,000 are significantly higher than those making less than $250,000.

You would never know this from the media.  They always conveniently forget to mention facts such as theses as they fail to fit the liberal narrative.  This is not about paying your fair share, it is clear from the data that the more you make the higher percentage of tax you pay.  If there is an argument if should be from those making $250,000 -$499,999 as they have the highest effective tax rates and now Obama wants to make them pay even more. 

Remember also, that this only shows individual income tax, not state, local, sales, social security or medicare taxes.  When those are added in these high income tax payers are nearly 50% in taxes already. 

We need to stop playing politics and start solving the problems in this country.  The only way we do this is if we are honest about what is really going on.  The only way we do this is by sharing the FACTS.