Tax Increase

Based on comments in these two posts, it looks like letting the Bush Tax cuts expire for the over-250,000-per-year crowd would increase taxes by less than 5% on less than 5% of US households.

[Who makes more than 250,000 Christian Science Monitor]

Using a somewhat different method of collecting data, the Tax Policy Center, a partnership between the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, estimates that about 6.07 million Americans earned above $200,000 in 2011. They make up the top 4.2 percent of taxpayers. But their income, an estimated $3.5 trillion, represents 32.5 percent of all the cash income earned.

[Crooks and Liars]

Just in case there's any doubt here, we are talking about less than a 5 percent increase in taxes on anyone with earned income in excess of $250,000.

Note that this increase is only on income over 250,000, so a person with an income of exactly 250,000 would see no increase at all. A person making 300,000 would see an increase only on the 50,000 over the 250,000 level, or a little less than 2,500$ (50,000 * 5%).

50% of all households in the US make less than 50,000 a year.

80% of all households in the US make less than 100,000 a year.

5% of US households make more than 250,000 a year but they get over 32% of all income in the US.

from: [Income Stats]

This tax increase thing just doesn't seem like something we should be wasting our breath on. Just do it so we can talk about something else.


tnb