Or I can vote for the politician I think will do the best job and criticize the elected official who is doing a poor job. It’s even possible that those two will be the same person.
No they don’t.
Pull out your own return and divide the two numbers I gave you. That’s as simple as it gets. That’s exactly the numbers that they are using for Romney.
The Tax Policy Center link is talking about a huge group of people in a broad range of income category. You can’t just say I fit into the middle quintile and that middle quintile pays 4.1% so I should pay 4.1%. The Tax Policy Center is meant to compare to Obama’s claim that the average middle class person pays 20.9%. It is not a predictor of what an individual will pay.
I’m not persuaded that is the case.
ALL of my federal taxes includes things like Social Security and Medicare. I know Social Security is capped at $110,000 (you stop paying more in SS if you earn more than that). For Romney that $110,000 represent 0.5% of his income. As such I doubt adding in his SS payments would move that 13.9% at all and would end up as a rounding issue somewhere deeper in the decimal places. Medicare? Is that capped? Not sure but same issue. How much did Romney pay in Medicare?
Not sure what all else is included in there but I think it is safe to say the Obama site is not fudging the numbers as badly as you would make it out to be. That said they may still be fudging some and taking worst case assumptions and such but the difference when doing that and what I actually pay is not hugely off the mark.
If you add in ALL taxes paid to the Feds what would Romney’s number look like?
I come to the pit you watch all you 'mercians fighting with each other, not to read a bunch of number fudging, so, less of the calculators more of the haters, ok?
Yarr! Republicans are stupid and ugly!!1
On inspection, the Romneys’ 13.9% does include all Federal taxes. The Romneys have no W-2 (wage) income, but do have business income. They earned $593,996 and paid $29,151 self-employment tax, which is the equivalent of both employee and employer’s Social Security and Medicare (Medicare is not capped, to answer your other question).
Hence it is not unreasonable to compare the 13.9% with people’s Federal income tax + SS + Medicare.
I guess I’m thinking of self-employment taxes, which is essentially the same as payroll taxes for the self employed. Half is deductible. Regardless, the tax is 2% less than you stated for this year and last.
I didn’t state any rate - that was someone else.
And if you really want to nit-pick, 57.5188% of the SE tax is deductible this year and last. 
My effective federal income tax rate was 3% this year. If I add in my SS and Medicare withholdings, it’s about 9%.
The Obama site tells me 17.6%. No matter how you slice it, that’s way high for me. I have no idea if my situation is typical, though. I’d guess not.
If anything, I think it’s a disservice to his cause if his calculator always reads high. Telling me I probably pay 17.6% in taxes when I actually pay 3% is more likely to make me vote Republican.
Do you pay Medicare taxes on capital gains income? All income?
No. Like SS, it is just on earned income.
I wonder if they are also including Social Security/Medicare paid by the employer. It’s not an approach I’ve ever noticed the Dems using before, but it gets the numbers to the right ball park, at least in your case. 3% income tax + 5.65% employee SS/Medicare + 7.65% employer SS/Medicare = 16.3%
I work at a tax rep firm and just so happen to have a return open in front of me that has taxable income of about $20k ($20,243, if you’d like to know). Person is single, doesn’t itemize, and- well, that’ it, really. Per the program’s handy dandy diagnostics, their marginal tax rate is 15%, effective is 13%. Neither is anywhere near that random Turbo Tax number. When I plug all that into the Obama calculator, it says the average paid by someone with that income is 15.5%-- not terribly off, imho.
Although there is an additional 3.8% medicare tax on unearned income for AGIs above $200,000/$250,000 starting in 2013.
You state that you are using “taxable income”, but LonghornDave is using total income. The Obama site says to enter “Income”, not “taxable income”, so LD looks to be using the correct methodology. The single person would have at least $3,700 exemption and $5,800 standard deduction, leaving $10,500 taxable. Tax on that is $1,150 = 5.75% = what TurboTax said.
I don’t believe this.
Total Income = $20,243
standard deduction for single = $5,800
personal exemption = $3,700
marginal tax rate of 10% on first $8,700 = $870
marginal tax rate of 15% on remainder = $306.45
total tax = $1,176.45
effective tax rate = 5.8%.
I’m not saying I don’t believe a person can have an income of $20,243 and an effective tax rate of 13%. I am saying I don’t believe you when you say “that’ it, really”. There has to be something you are not saying. One thing I can think of is that this person is claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return.
I would concede that this is a reasonable way to evaluate this. I would not evaluate it that way as a person will presumably get a benefit from paying payroll taxes somewhat comparable to what they paid in (at least in the same stratosphere); therefore, I think payroll taxes should be excluded. However, it is at least a debatable point. The tax rates should still come in far below what Obama has stated. I don’t think it is at all reasonable to try to add the employer paid portion of payroll taxes.
This is a pretty gross oversimplification, but note that it isn’t trying to tell you what your rate is. It’s telling you what the “typical” rate is for people making what you make.
I agree that they should be more specific about exactly which taxes their talking about, but it’s pretty easy to make Romney look bad in the eyes of many taxpayers. There is a nuanced debate to be had about tax policy, but you won’t find it in this type of gimmick.
Let me quickly check my outrage meter: It’s about on “1” out of “10”. A little annoyed, but this is politics. Can’t get too worked up about it.
I didn’t say that was total income, I said it was taxable income. AGI. Anyway, here are the numbers, if you’d like.
Total income: $30,114
Other adjustments: $250
AGI: $29, 764
Standard Deduction: $5800
Exemption: $3700
Taxable income: $20,264
Tax: $2616
Then, after various payments and stuff, it lists out on a separate client schedule the marginal and effective tax rates, what with the above numbers. Perhaps the professional tax software is calculating the numbers incorrectly, but it has fairly good reputation in the industry for its accuracy.
This is where 50 Dopers jump in, tell me the above is all wrong, and that I’m a dumb dumb. :p:D