Obama wants us to believe that if the government “Soaks the Rich”, it will help solve all of our economic woes. But the hard numbers tell a different story.
The Administration proposes punishing those who earn over $250,000 a year, with a wealth tax. So let’s use published IRS data to prove just what this does.
The annually published collections data from the IRS, does not specifically cite data relating to those who earn over $250,000 a year, so let’s look at the next break point down. In a static world, this would result in even more revenue.
The top 5% of taxpayers, according to the most recent IRS data, are those who earn more than $154,643 a year. That income group earned a combined total of $2.482490 Trillion and paid a combined total of $610.156 Billion in personal income tax.
So let’s assume that Obama wanted to tax those people at a whopping 50% tax rate. That would mean that they would end up paying $1.241245 Trillion in personal income tax (half of their income), instead of the $610.156 Billion that they currently pay. That means that the government would be getting an additional $631 Billion in revenue from that group (and that only if many from that group didn’t flee the USA).
That’s not even half of one year’s deficit under Obama.
If Obama and the Democrats were to tax that group at an phenomenal 90%, the additional revenue would just barely exceed the deficit.
And remember that we’re not talking about those who earn more than $250,000 a year, but those who earn over $154,643 a year. If you included only those earning over $250,000, then even taxing them at 90% wouldn’t cover one year’s worth of Obama’s deficit.
Then consider that all of the indicators show that our most prolific taxpayers and job-creators are fleeing the USA to more success-friendly jurisdictions. That means that there would be fewer rich people to tax and less revenue to be taken from them. As more wealthy people leave, tax revenue will go down even further.
“Soak the Rich” is NOT the answer.
Instead of “soaking the rich”, the government should be finding ways to entice more successful people from other countries to move to the USA, where the additional revenue from their US-based success would benefit all Americans.
But to the Democrats, it’s not about saving our economy. It’s about bringing it down, so they can feel more powerful, doling out favors from their ivory towers.
Follow John Gaver on Twitter: Follow @OrigIntent
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