Accounting Today - A new analysis by Congress’s nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that 51 percent of U.S. households did not pay any federal income tax in 2009. The report was unveiled during a hearing Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee on the distribution of tax benefits and burdens in the Tax Code. “American taxpayers are skeptical that the answer to our fiscal problems is for them to sacrifice more, when almost half of all households are not paying any income taxes,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the ranking Republican member on the committee. “Those who promote higher income tax rates in the name of equality and deficit reduction need to come clean about what this means. With the income tax base so narrow, meaningful reductions in our deficits would require far more than taxes on the rich. Those tax increases would squarely hit the middle class, which the President and others have said is off limits. In short, the quest for social equality results in fewer resources and worse outcomes for the nation as a whole and the poor in particular.”
According to the JCT analysis, 51 percent of all households, which includes filers and non-filers, had either zero or negative income tax liability for tax year 2009. The committee also found that 30 percent of tax units actually made money off the income tax system for the 2009 tax year. “We are in a situation where people are talking about increasing taxes on higher income people because, supposedly, they can afford it—and probably they can afford it,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “But I get sick and tired of the demagoguery that goes on in Washington of taxing higher income people. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s latest analysis, 49 percent of households are paying 100 percent of income taxes coming into the federal government, while 51 percent of the people in this country don't pay any income tax whatsoever. Read full story here: News New Mexico
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