And lo on Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:27:46 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> Nota Bene. With the real figures the bottom 50% pay between 7% and 12%  
>> on their taxable income whereas the top 50% pay between 12% and 28%,
>
> You're missing the AMT there, which goes 29% to 36% this year, I think.

For 2004 I've got the AGI and returns broken down by wages, the taxable  
income for each and the total tax generated from that income.

So for those in 2004 earning <$2,000 we have 300,578 returns making up  
0.2926% of all returns with a taxable amount of $12,5052,000 of which  
$9,080,000 is tax (7.2610%) totaling 0.0010% of all tax collected.

The highest percentage is those earning between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000;  
45,055 returns; $69,937,281,000 gross taxable; $19,605,837,000 in tax  
(28.0335%) and 2.2503% of total tax collected.

> Anyway, here's another question to ponder: How much of the government  
> services do people making >$200K consume?

Amusingly when I first read this thread that was a point I was going to  
make - why should those who don't use the services be forced to contribute  
to them. Okay assume that if you have the money then you'll pay to go  
private and not use any public services; that means by definition the only  
ones using them will be those who can't afford to pay for private (i.e.  
the poor). So you hit a problem - you either don't take enough money to  
run such services properly or you take so much that you leave the people  
destitute.

Of course it might open up new business, if a private health clinic offers  
treatment per annum for less then the government is taking away from you  
then more people opt out of this public service; except such businesses  
can opt to be picky on who they take.

So the healthy and unhealthy rich get fantastic treatment, the healthy  
poor get some treatment and the unhealthy poor are essentially left to  
fend for themselves and possibly turn to mugging the healthy poor (the  
rich having too much security). Oo don't forget trickle-down :-P

> So what *is* the excuse for taking more, other than "the rich people  
> don't get hurt enough to actually fight back with violence."

No that's pretty much it. There was an amusing Bremner, Bird, and Fortune  
sketch on TV not long ago discussing the loss of our 10% bracket and how  
one of the advisors (from Goldman Sachs) had no notion of loosing any  
chunk of their income -


by her personal assistant"
"And how did she react?"
"Well she didn't notice for a couple of years"
[audience laughter]

Likewise we've had some Times columnists shoot herself in the foot by  

and then got blitzed by people pointing out that those loosing said amount  

large.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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