EXPLAINER: Who Pays Income Taxes?

Рет қаралды 69,376

11 жыл бұрын

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks breaks down the recent "47% of Americans don't pay income tax" comment by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Cenk breaks down just who is in this 47% that Romney is talking about. Also discussed is the real percentage of Americans who pay no federal income tax, and which federal tax benefits Republicans favor.
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Пікірлер: 743

@mikeyman2010 10 жыл бұрын

That explains how Romney ended up w/ 47% of the popular vote in the end. Sweet, sweet irony.

@kaysandesses 11 жыл бұрын

Very well! I look forward to your reply.

@emantabrizi 11 жыл бұрын

Government doesn't have to increase prices. Insurance companies are doing that on their own. Ask anyone who has private insurance now how much their rates have gone up the past three years.

@bctopper 11 жыл бұрын

Great video

@TheYellowDK 11 жыл бұрын

I think that this is one of TheYoungTurk's best videos the entire time I've been watching them. Very informative on a large scale of issues and topics, many facts, very little bias (because sometimes, honestly, they can be), overall inspirational and hopefully influential, and a little bit of humor sneaked in anyway. Great video TYT, it's the video's like this that make you the heroes in my eyes.

@CPRATTBOSTON 11 жыл бұрын

Over 8,500,000 are on social security disability. I was once approached by a relative who had not worked in years and he told me he was getting a cuckoo check from social security. He said he went to the clinic and they stepped him through the entire process. He laughed about it made it sound like you go in the front without a job and hop on the belt and get carried through the sytem coming out the back door waiting for a check in the mail.

@ItzMorphinTime22 11 жыл бұрын

You can tell what someone really thinks about you when they think no one is listening....

@A86 11 жыл бұрын

Thanks! ;)

@Mark-eh7kx 11 жыл бұрын

Yeah, the numbers don't add up. The only think that I can think is that it has to be 7% of the elderly that are employed who don't pay federal income tax. But, the 47% has to include the elderly who are and aren't employed.

@JTrizzleFizzle 11 жыл бұрын

One factor not included in the study is where people live. A family of 5 making 200k a year in Texas, are much better off than the same family living in Massachusetts.

@MeoMajora 11 жыл бұрын

You're right. He's totally asking "100k middle income?" Romney saying "No, 200-250k or less."

@9072aaa 11 жыл бұрын

well said ! thanks

@emantabrizi 11 жыл бұрын

What rules are you referring to?

@Aezelll 11 жыл бұрын

The scary thing here is that of that 47% that don't pay taxes, 7% is the real non-elderly number. That means 40% of the country is elderly. The baby boomer generation is beginning to retire, we will have a HUGE number of elderly to support compared to the young workforce. There is really nothing magical any politician can do about this. It is going to be expensive and painful.

@GenghisVern 11 жыл бұрын

wait... 93% of the 47% are elderly, but 61% are working paying payroll taxes... please clarify

@RoyalFleurDeLis 11 жыл бұрын

RIGHT ON

@anamemananame 11 жыл бұрын

Oh my, this is one of the most brilliant men I have ever heard speak in my life... says no one ever.

@dreamcoyote 11 жыл бұрын

I've heard a lot of different versions.What I assumed (probably incorrectly) was similar but instead of just getting a refund, people who earn 30k or less often own no taxes due to exemptions. Totally making up numbers but, if you earn 30k as a family and owe 4,500 in federal income taxes, and then you subtract your personal exemptions, child exemptions, mortgage interest payments, etc and in the end owe no tax, you are among that %47. Many more don't have taxable assets (don't earn/own enough).

@general2109 11 жыл бұрын

Honestly, there's so many factors you'll never get a completely unbiased analysis.

@daddyleon 11 жыл бұрын

What do you mean... and why did you remove that comment? :S I'm confused.

@im1greatman 10 жыл бұрын

No one should pay a federal income tax. Where did people in government get off thinking they can steal your property?

@Swidhelm 11 жыл бұрын

That makes sense too. I'm Canadian, and went through a layoff (still work for the same company and am full time again) and had my unemployed girl friend living with me. Had her down as a dependent on my taxes, and ended up getting something like $2000 back at the end of the year. Though I wouldn't have owed, if I didn't have her down as a dependent, I likely would have got around $200 or so back.

@supafly345 11 жыл бұрын

Wait what, 40% of the country being elderly is sounding fishy

@hatakiyama 6 жыл бұрын

Cenk, i'd like to see an updated video on these numbers if you guys have time. i'm sure your audience would be interested.

@conan1174 11 жыл бұрын

It's a toss up, which election has been more amusing; The senile old man and the grizzly mom, or the robotic mormon and Eddie Munster?

@grfIII 11 жыл бұрын

Best video of the season!!!

@MrStarfox1980 11 жыл бұрын

A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work. Often something is physically being built or maintained.

@animals0feel1pain2 11 жыл бұрын

I'm not really sure how you can know how Romney interprets a question without being Romney himself. He was asked "So is 100k middle income?" He responded with a knee-jerk, "No" Did he interpret the question to be "Is 100k the upper limit of middle income?" How would you be able to know that? Taking it without bias, you can't claim to know how Romney interpreted the question to be. You just have to assume he's answering the question to the best of his ability.

@synapse131 11 жыл бұрын

FYI, most places require paying back those food stamps and any other assistance. Here in Oakland, CA, a single individual can get $100/m cash assistance and $200/m food stamps for one year only and it's REQIURED to be paid back. There's a federal lifetime limit of 5 years for welfare and most state limit that to 1-2 years and only families with children get food stamps indefinitely. I'm sure what you're talking about does occur but I'm also sure it's a small amount overall.

@BrotherAlpha 11 жыл бұрын

28% pay no federal income tax, but pay the payroll tax. Just over 10% are elderly.

@MoeTHM 11 жыл бұрын

Ron Paul said it best when fox news was saying the same thing. He said something like "47%, I think were half way there."

@Marcara081 11 жыл бұрын

4:16 - "talking to Ronald Reagan's Ghost" Fucking hilarious.

@Nimahan 11 жыл бұрын

The only things I am 100% sure that aren't taxed are children's clothes, fresh food and cakes. (No idea what makes cakes so special but I'm not complaining)

@skytroopermp 11 жыл бұрын

I like how his hair is all ruffled lmao. Maybe he was in the back pulling it out!

@gulllars 11 жыл бұрын

I'm pretty sure the quote was "$200k to $250k OR LESS", meaning either one of those numbers could be the top cut-off for "middle class". Still, that would mean only 4.2% are above the middle class. Depending on where the middle class bottom cut-off is, let's say the median income, that would mean roughly 45% of the population (50 to 95 percentile) would be considered middle class, and 50% would be lower class / poor.

@Swidhelm 11 жыл бұрын

I had an argument with somebody a little while about this. From what I read, that 47% were basically people that didn't owe at the end of the year as a result of paying too much from their income, and got money back on their tax return. Republicans latched onto that and said "See! 47% Murikans never done pay any taxes, tell ya what! Those done be those lazy folk what don't work!"

@DarthAzabrush 11 жыл бұрын

You know this part of the US system I can agree with. Here in Britain even benefit claimants pay income tax on the benefits that are (barely) keeping them alive. That is fucked up.

@ralphinator2 11 жыл бұрын

that's 50K per household, not per person. That's two people making 25k each.

@emantabrizi 11 жыл бұрын

What do you mean NOW involved? They've been involved forever. Medicare and Medicaid have been around since the '60s. The only thing that's changed is that government is now regulating and subsidizing private health insurance.

@balderdashery1 11 жыл бұрын

It's been that way for a long time. I just got a reply from the UK, they have 20% sales tax, so we should not feel so bad.

@H2O_Chi 11 жыл бұрын

I looked him up. He thinks a gradual dismantling of government is the solution. Anarchy sounds nice, but nobody who is sane would believe it'd work. People need cohesion in order to behave.

@boenrobot 11 жыл бұрын

I watched the Daily Show before this, and there seems to be some kind of stats messing up here... Jon showed a near 1/4th of that 47% non-federal-tax-payers being elderly, so that's like ~10% of the total populus (he didn't put out the numbers, just the chart). Here, we see 7% being the NON-elderly non-federal-tax-payers, which would add up to ~17% of the total. Something is not right here. Does anyone have a link to the source data?

@synapse131 11 жыл бұрын

If it were true, there wouldn't be so many people living on the streets. It's insane! Most of those people not paying federal taxes are working and happen to have family that gets them tax breaks. Crazy hyperbolic rhetoric! You are soooooo right!

@jerransperarman9411 11 жыл бұрын

good video

@Factfive 11 жыл бұрын

I believe Mitt Romney didn't pay any income taxes. If you remember in one of the primary debates when Newt and Romney were dueling over tax plans, Newt said he would eliminate capital gains taxes and Mitt countered saying if that was to happened, he would have paid no taxes at all. He was clearly saying he only pays capital gains taxes,

@Evirthewarrior 11 жыл бұрын

He was not born in the united states, he became a citizen the hard way.

@ZiqqiPH 11 жыл бұрын

He said "or less", which means that the mentioned amount is included.

@Kritikalitee 11 жыл бұрын

3:07 does that exclude the military members?

@CharleyR42 11 жыл бұрын

Being working class does not mean you are below poverty level..

@Spiderweb127 11 жыл бұрын

Omg...the working poor status came up to 30K a year? Holy shit thats only a few thousand away from ME. I'm fucked.

@MrStarfox1980 11 жыл бұрын

Please note it is not free, we do pay for it with our sales taxes, But again my aunt had cancer in her kidney she was put on a new drug that was shrinking the cancer very effectivly but it started causing problems with her bowls, the drug cost 15 000 a month, but after complications she was in the hospital with in 2 weeks and had the kidney removed this was 2 years ago, again all depends on the situation none of that money came directly out of our pocket

@jregan67 11 жыл бұрын

To be fair, the Cenk's statement is, "What is the percentage of people who are not elderly and don't pay federal income tax," which is somewhat misleading. But I was not aware of the source data (if the video referenced it, I missed it). Thanks to you, I've found the data on Thinkprogress - "What Romney Won’t Tell You About The 47 Percent"

@xxxBradTxxx 11 жыл бұрын

I'm from Washington State, we pay the most because we don't have a state income tax...

@hyperboreean 11 жыл бұрын

"I'm so not poverty level." Just intellectually and politically. "Middle class" is a term referring to upper social levels. The professionals and managers who derive at least part of their income from capital not labour, enjoy finaincial security and can afford things like hired domestic help. A picket fence and a mortgaged house doesn't make you middle class. If you live on a paycheck (even 50k+ year) your WORKING CLASS.

@emantabrizi 11 жыл бұрын

Who are these "rich" that supposedly pushed for the ACA? Private insurance companies? The ones that will benefit from having 30 million new customers? Are those the "rich" that you're referring to?

@mrPAK215 11 жыл бұрын

To be fair, I don't even think Romney knows what point he was trying to make.

@ThatIMayServe 11 жыл бұрын

His actual quote was "people who make 200 to 250 thousand dollars AND LESS."..........c'mon Jenk, don't feed the monster.

@AndreB23 11 жыл бұрын

To be fair, he did say, "Or less", so according to that statement, he wasn't referring to just the people who make more than 200K. (although he does probably think it) Still, it's an outlandish statement, considering that the tax rate for the actual middle class isn't anywhere NEAR 200K. Hell, even 100K would have been pushing it.

@DreagerEx 11 жыл бұрын

Agreed, glad I didn't have to write my own comment in this regard.

@mrPAK215 11 жыл бұрын

I'm a liberal from Texas and I have one thing to say to that: You're right. Southerners would sooner vote for Mr. Potato Head than a Democrat. Case-in-point: They're voting for Mitt Romney.

@kaysandesses 11 жыл бұрын

Good point...

@ivanrorick 11 жыл бұрын

My self-employment tax rate is 15%, and that's just the FICA stuff. That alone is higher than Romney's overall tax rate.

@animals0feel1pain2 11 жыл бұрын

Yeah, my personal opinion is that 100k-250k is upper middle class, 25k-45k is lower middle class. But anyways, Mitt Romney was answering the question, "Is 100k middle income?" He responds "No, middle income is 200k to 250k and less". So I've said this a lot on the comment section, but that must mean "and less" didn't include 100k. This implies that he thinks the middle class is 200k to 250k.

@Distortion0 11 жыл бұрын

"Hey, let's write the constitution in all caps, because that will make us sound intelligent." Said no Founding Father ever.

@jregan67 11 жыл бұрын

2:32 - if 47% don't pay federal income tax and if you remove the elderly it drops to 7%, does that mean 40% of the American population is 65 & over? According to 2011 census information people 65 & over make up 13.3%. Why doesn't this add up?

@tctheunbeliever 11 жыл бұрын

The lesser of two evils? Hell, we just need to pick the guy who has enough sense to know when to stfu.

@letmetellyawithladyt 11 жыл бұрын

That is correct.....but the almost 10% sales tax cracks me up sometimes.

@Nimahan 11 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure about Canada, but having been to the US sales tax is annoying. We don't notice it so much in the UK since VAT is usually included in the prices shown on shelves. If a dvd is 7.99, then it's still 7.99 at the till. I had $20 to spend in a US store. So I pick up something, it's about 19.95 or something. I go to pay and then I'm irritated for the rest of the day because at the time I had no idea I didn't have enough because I hadn't taken sales tax into account. I mean why would I?

@trier4952 11 жыл бұрын

and BOOM goes the dynamite. Love it how Cenk throws it down like that.

@barbazzallc 11 жыл бұрын

just because they're elderly doesn't mean they're retired or not working. my grandmother worked until she was 82 because she enjoyed being out and talking with people. others however work late in life because they didn't make enough in their younger years to retire comfortably on and SS just isn't cutting it for them. there are several reasons why elderly people work.

@BreakerInc 11 жыл бұрын

Ouch.

@kollegahsterin 11 жыл бұрын

wow, I can hardly keep up with all the stuff that is being uploaded by the young turks and their other channels. they and especially cenk must have a very long day

@ManhunterFromMars 11 жыл бұрын

40% of the country is elderly? I did not know this...

@durhamdf 11 жыл бұрын

I can't find any quote of Obama ever saying this. That article didn't give a quote either, just that he Obama said this. The closest thing I can find to Obama saying anything like that were a few occasions when he was talking about extending the Bush tax cuts for middle income families. He said that the GOP would lie and say he was raising middle class taxes. He just responded to this by basically saying that EVEN if you make 250K your taxes won't go up. If you have a quote I'd like to see it...

@Nayr747 11 жыл бұрын

The median individual yearly income in the U.S. is actually around $26,000, which is pretty sad.

@ramone2185 11 жыл бұрын

The idea of less regulation makes no sense. Just imagine if there was no laws. Wouldn't that cause chaos? I'd steal shit all the time if that was the case. You need laws, and you NEED regulations as well. Just had to get that off my chest.

@theaceofspades39 11 жыл бұрын

he also BASSED the shit out of the white house sound system

@stupidtrooper501 11 жыл бұрын

i think you are considered elderly when you hit 55 and most people are able to retire at 65

@prometheusking 11 жыл бұрын

could there possibly be a correlation between the two? maybe?

@cockroach2 11 жыл бұрын

So wait, 40% of the country is elderly?

@MrJarth 11 жыл бұрын

You are not meant to pay income tax. It goes to the fed, and they take a percentage. It isn't a law. That is why richer people don't pay the income tax because they have the money to get a lawyer if the Fed decide to sue.

@stoikr 11 жыл бұрын

So 7% of the 47% are non-elderly and don't pay income tax (--> 93% of the 47% are elderly, right??). 61% of the 47% are employed. I don't see how that's possible... can someone clarify? Or is elderly =/= retired?

@balderdashery1 11 жыл бұрын

In British Columbia, Canada we pay 12 % sales tax.

@kwatson813 11 жыл бұрын

Wow....just WOW.

@RoninDave 11 жыл бұрын

Part 2? Was there a Part 1 I missed? They do not think, they follow, they regurgitate - so where did you borrow this from? I rarely find a rightwinger coming up with something on their own that isn't parroted from Limbaugh, Savage, or Coulter

@nosuchthing8 11 жыл бұрын

Well that's wrong also. The median income is $50K a year. Half make less, half make more. It's important because in Mitt's view, $40K a year is a trivial outlier, when in fact its not that less than the median wage.

@Quijiboh 11 жыл бұрын

Confused British guy here. What's the difference between payroll and income tax?

@GenghisVern 11 жыл бұрын

I'm pretty sure the "elderly" and the "working paying payroll taxes" figures are overlapping, with many elderly working to survive. But yes, the data was sloppy.

@nickitheninja5 11 жыл бұрын

As teachers, my parents are dependent on the government

@balderdashery1 11 жыл бұрын

I don't think that you pay higher taxes. It's just that your state has a higher level of income per capita than many other states.

@Rodier1128 11 жыл бұрын

I understand. It's very unfortunate that even in this day and age we have people so poor. America has truly failed to prosper.

@nosuchthing8 11 жыл бұрын

Yes, and when you have a population that is skewed, it represents the middle of the population much better than the average. The 'Average', for example, could refer to an amount that doesn't even occur in the data series. The median always does. If you had a bunch of people making $1000 a year and a few making $1000,000 a year, the people that make $1000 clearly represent the middle of the road of the data, rather than a salary of around $500,000.

@SuperGuitarman69 11 жыл бұрын

And colleges are expensive because people get free "printed" money from the government. Thus driving up the cost of college. Right now, we have people coming out of college owing the American tax payers 250k plus, with no job to help pay it back. What does that mean in economic terms? It means that college education isn't worth the price of the paper it is written on. To change that? You must first STOP government aid, and a college degree will once again be based on value, not so that P2

@dreamcoyote 11 жыл бұрын

interestingly, before they started the "starve the beast" thing, I read that the republicans weren't that concerned about the budget total, they just were really against any deficits. They were mostly concerned that you spent what you took in and didn't go much past that. That actually sounds really reasonable these days. Not the current "we'll cut taxes and take in more money" fiction combined with spending cuts :/ I think those dinos would increase taxes and reduce spending. seems sensible

@CorginShep 11 жыл бұрын

And I have a MS-EECS but that doesn't mean I can just falsify values willy nilly. How can you make an assumption that grossly contradict federal reports regarding upper class wealth income and the federal budget? A citation is needed for your statement regarding that stripping the 1% can only pay for 13 days of Government expenditures.

@bigbadalastor 11 жыл бұрын

I love it when Cenk goes into his little high-pitched Jay Leno-esque spurts.

@Nimahan 11 жыл бұрын

Here in the UK it's currently at 20%

@paddyoclown 11 жыл бұрын

when you buy a can of coke cola you pay tax

@ASTR1D88 11 жыл бұрын

I made less than 30k last year and still had to pay federal taxes

@billhobin07 11 жыл бұрын

the middle class comment at the end should be reconsidered middle class meaning they have enough money at the end of the billing cycle to save, invest, or waste. it is variable based on cost of living and in many areas where that 4.7% live 60,000 a year means you are looking for extra income to not go homeless.