2007-02-20 16:20:09 · 5 answers · asked by savestheday205 1 in Business & Finance ➔ Taxes ➔ United States
Possibly. Children on SSI don't pay tax. Adults sometimes have to pay tax on up to 85% of their SSI. Generally, anyone with income less than 5150 if single (10,300 married filing joint) is not required to file a federal return, due to having no tax liability up to that point. Even if that income is exceeded, the taxpayer may qualify for any number of credits, and they get to reduce taxable income by an additional 3300 per person claimed on the return. So, yes I could see how a large proportion of Americans "don't pay federal tax" however, even those who only make minimal amounts of income throughout the year, tend to have federal taxes withheld from their pay. So it's not that they don't pay it, they just get it all back each year.
2007-02-20 16:27:28 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
That's probably about right. There are a lot of people who don't have to file because their income isn't high enough, and many of those who do file have no taxable income by the time their deductions and credits are taken out. Then of course there's a fairly huge underground economy of people who work "under the table".
I'd be curious on whether or not those numbers included children, since that would skew the numbers considerably. It's probably a fair assumption is that most kids under 17 don't pay taxes. If they're included, I'd have expected the numbers to be at least 50% who don't pay taxes, probably more.
2007-02-20 16:55:47 · answer #2 · answered by Judy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The bottom 50% of wage earners only pay about 4% of the total country's federal income taxes.
Many poor parents get back more than they made in due to the Earned Income Tax Credit. Tax time for them is like a year end bonus.
This may be what they were getting at.
2007-02-21 00:52:30 · answer #3 · answered by Wayne Z 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Most small children don't.
As for adults, Everybody gets a personal exemption, plus a standard deduction. You need to make over $13,000 or so before you owe anything at all.
After that, there is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps out low-income earners, plus child tax credit.
Many people have income through mechanisms that are tax-free - Roth IRA's US treasury bonds.
2007-02-20 16:30:14 · answer #4 · answered by John T 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
repubs?
2007-02-20 16:26:19 · answer #5 · answered by cork 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋