47% revisited

Back in February I put together a post on the oft used statistic that 47% of Americans pay no Federal income tax. When I pointed out that the report by the Tax Policy Center, where this statistic originated, showed - 1.5% of American taxpayers making over one million dollars a year don't pay any taxes. This is also true of 2% of Americans making between $200,000 and $1 million and 3.5% of Americans making between $100,000 and $200,000." one commenter said I was playing "fast and loose with facts." and that "Opinions aren't facts." Apparently the commenter never bothered to read to original report.

It now seems that some of the national media outlets, in the storm of the debt ceiling debate, have taken a second look at this report (here and here) and are pointing out how we have millionaires who pay zero federal income tax and Republican legislators vowing not to increase taxes by a single penny.

The good news is that this information is finally getting out there to an electorate that has been asked to accept shared sacrifice as long as that sharing doesn't include the rich. The bad news is that our current political landscape is too political to make the obvious choices and actually close the tax loopholes that allow the rich to avoid all Federal income taxes.