Comments by "Roger Dodger" (@rogerdodger8415) on "" video.

  1. the IRS releases aggregate data on individual income taxes, with a two-year delay. The Tax Foundation helpfully organizes the reports, and in January they released their summary of the data for 2015. We will look at estimates for this year in just a bit. In 2015, 141.2 million taxpayers reported a total of $10.14 trillion in adjusted gross income (AGI). On this amount, they paid $1.45 trillion in taxes, or 14.3%. That’s our collective average tax rate, in other words. But we know averages can be deceiving, and this one certainly is. Most people paid well below that rate, and a small number paid a great deal more. We’ll start at the bottom. The lower half of those 141.2 million tax filers had total AGI of $1.145 trillion, or about 11.3% of all income. On this, they paid $41.1 billion in taxes. Their average tax rate was 3.5%, and they paid 2.8% of all taxes. Note, that’s the lower half of taxpayers – meaning they filed tax returns. There’s a large group below them who didn’t have to file because they had no taxable income. So well over half the population either paid no income tax at all or paid a very low percentage rate. Jealous? You shouldn’t be. Do the math and you’ll see the average AGI for this bottom half of taxpayers was only $16,211. These are not wealthy people. Literally, housing and food and other basics are critical issues for them. Most were employed in some way for at least part of 2015, since they have income, but they didn’t make much. The system is designed to give them a break on taxes, and it worked. At the same time, this income inequality has a frustrating consequence: the other half of taxpayers bear almost the entire burden. Note that the top 10% pay 70% of income taxes. The top 50% pay 97%.
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