Punch line: Chasing after a couple of thousand rich dudes seems like a wild goose chase to me.
I’m more concerned about the 50% of folks who don’t have any skin in the game … who pay no taxes and think other folks should pay more.
Old refrain: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax the guy behind the tree.”
Tax Policy Center analysis reported in The Atlantic …
76 million people won’t legally owe individual income taxes in 2011
The vast majority of this group is poor. They won’t owe individual income taxes because they won’t earn a lot of money to start, and various exemptions, like the earned income tax credit, will wipe out any tax liability … maybe even getting them a refundable credit – a check in the mail from the Feds.
Among families making more than $100,000, there will also be half a million tax units that will also pay no income tax.
And, 7,000 millionaires will pay no individual income tax.
How can that be?
Couple of ways:
- Tax-free income … think gov’t bonds
- Catastrophic losses … e.g. mansion gets wiped out by a hurricane, very high uninsured medical expenses
- Discretionary deductions … think charitable deductions
- Fraud and other shenanigans …
