Close To Half Of The U.S. Households Currently Do Not Owe Federal Income Tax. Truth or Fiction?

Close To Half Of The U.S. Households Currently Do Not Owe Federal Income Tax. Truth or Fiction?

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“Close to half of U.S. households currently do not owe federal income tax.”  How accurate is this statement?  This statement is cited as evidence, typically by Republicans, that lower income families do not pay their fair share of income taxes.   This viewpoint is flawed because it specifies income tax.  There are other forms of taxation.  Let us list them one by one and see who pays and at what rate.

Income Tax

The recession of 2008 and beyond has vastly increased the number of households where individuals lost their jobs.  Many workers that held jobs had their hours cut.  Some workers were demoted to less paying jobs.This factor alone resulted in a tax payer dip.  The fall out from this recession is so many families have lost income and thus pay a much lower tax rate or no taxes.

Congress passed legislation to help those who lost their jobs.  The 2009 Recovery Act removed millions from the federal income tax rolls when individuals received unemployment benefits.

What other category of individuals do not appear on the tax rolls?

  •     Elderly
  •     Serious disability
  •     Students

Here is a list of inconvenient truths that should dispel the notion that nearly half of the US population does not pay taxes:
Low income households do pay federal taxes.  “The poorest fifth of households paid an average of 4.0 percent of their incomes in federal taxes in 2007, the latest year for which these data are available.”
One up from the bottom fifth payed 10.6 percent.
Low income households pay about 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes.

Payroll Taxes

If you want to see how statistics lie or are obfuscated with political smoke, then read the following list of who and how much different segments of our population pay Federal Taxes.
Let us break up our population into six parts, most wealthy at the top going down to the poorest families and see how much each section pays and see if you can detect any problem with this portrayal.

  1. Top  (Most wealthy) pay 1.6% in payroll taxes
  2. Pay 5.7%  in payroll taxes
  3. Pay 9.5 %  in payroll taxes
  4. Pay 9.4 %  in payroll taxes
  5. Pay 9.5 %  in payroll taxes
  6. Bottom (poorest families) Pay 8.8 %

Looking at the above list of who pays the most taxes it appears that the wealthy do not pay their fair share!  But the truth is not apparent at first glance because the rich have lower numbers.  There are way fewer rich people than poor.   Since 1980 the poverty rate in the U.S. has increased from about 11% to 12%.   In 2010 the rate had increased to 15.1%  So why is this important?  For two reasons.  First is this chart (above) does show that the poorest families do pay a significant share.  The second point is this.   Just reflect a moment and realize that by helping the less advantaged families at the bottom become middle class or better, the tax rolls will expand!  There is a lot more low and middle class than rich.  If you expand those groups, you get a huge tax benefit.

Federal Excise Tax

The next chart is most startling and should run somewhat counter to the claim that the low income families do not pay their fair share of taxes.   It shows another form of tax collected by government through producers or retailers.  It is included in the price of the product so while we still pay the tax, we  sort of don’t know or think about it.   It is called excise tax.

How much of a family income goes to taxes?
How much of a family income goes to taxes?

Misc Taxes

In calculating wealth factor for a family the concept of marketable assets needs to be employed.  Marketable assets are those items that can easily be converted to cash.  Real estate, stocks and bonds are prime examples.  The middle class held most of their wealth in owning their home while the very rich have stocks and bonds.  The 2008 recession saw a huge decline in middle class home ownership as part of their marketable assets.  People loss their homes in vast numbers.  Real estate, stocks and bonds are traded generating investment costs and out of that process significant tax generation for many layers of government is achieved.   Fewer middle class Americans are now paying as much in property and other home related taxes as before.  They are not trading up in housing.  Property values have not increased in most areas of the county.  County property tax rates have even fallen.  Speculators and investors are now becoming a larger component of paying taxes associated with investments than the middle class.

 

Further Reading:
Wealth, Income and Power by G. William Domhoff, http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html/

 

Supreme Court Ruling: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Supreme Court Ruling: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

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Wikipedia: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions.

Wikipedia: The First Amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

The first amendment if examined closely sort of spells out a generic thrust or tone for expected national behavior but it jumps around a bit as to what it is point toward.  The first specific term used was “religion”.  This does NOT necessary imply a group of people but might be a personal belief.  The next specific term is “freedom of speech”.  This is not a group either but an individual freedom and extrapolated from those compiled individual freedoms one can form freedom of speech to larger groups of individuals such as the press, corporations and unions.  You can not give freedom of speech to one individual and take or diminish that freedom away when that person joins a group of other individuals.  In fact, the next part of the amendment goes on to make sure that when a group of individuals get together their individual freedoms do not diminish but they do have the (implied) ability to add their individual freedoms to form a more powerful voice when it is stated “right of peaceable assembly.

The first amendment is a very basic freedom of behavior and protection document for individuals and even specifies that the same singular behavior attribute be also applied to groups of individuals (implied in the wording).

The rather explosive component of Citizens United is their claim that money expenditure is also allowed as part of the freedom of speech.  This is a bit perverse when held up to the first amendment orthodox meaning.   The first amendment specified individual freedoms and that those individual freedoms can add one by one as INDIVIDUALS add their collective voices in the form of a group.

Problem:  Money is a most powerful medium.  It can be used to attain just about any desired outcome.  It can be used to give life and take it away.  It can be used to win or loose elections.  It can be used to do harm or do good.  It may be the ultimate medium of power.  The problem with money is it can be used to attain much more power than the singular citizen.  This is the corrupting element.  The first amendment spoke in terms of individual freedoms.  It did not think of allowing adding advantage to those who could buy influence beyond a single citizen’s voice.

If the “supreme” court could take the time to more fully understand the first amendment they would realize that they should move toward insuring one person, one vote of influence and try to support the idea of campaign reform by limiting expenditures and not continue to support the wishes of the oligarchs.

Albertson’s Top Management Deals With Big Picture Problems But Fails To See Smaller Issues

Albertson’s Top Management Deals With Big Picture Problems But Fails To See Smaller Issues

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Albertson’s is owned by a big box house operation, Supervalue Inc.  This may have set up top management to think in terms of resolving company and store performance issues from a twenty thousand feet top down view and not take the time or interest to view street level uniqueness for each individual store and how each store interfaces with the local community.  One approach does not fit all (stores), is the point I am making.

In a Business Week web site article it was stated that “Albertsons Southern California President Dan Sanders said in a statement. “Albertsons suffered a decrease in customers and sales throughout the division and did not respond adequately to customer needs.”  Later in the same article Greg Conger, president of United Food commercial Workers, Union 324 in Orange County stated that “ever since SuperValu purchased Albertsons, they have had difficulty running conventional grocery stores”

What I see:

  • The produce is too high priced.  Trader Joe’s is doing much better.
  • The cut beef products behind the meat counter and packaged do not seem to be better than select grade.  COSTCO is offering much better quality and value.
  • Many store sale items were close to expiration dates and some items we found were past those dates.
  • The new June 2012 layoffs of store staff may have hurt Albertson’s even more because management failed to realize that portions of their stores are separate smaller store operations.  They made the mistake of laying off all store employees by seniority and not taking into consideration individuals that possessed specialized skills along with customer loyalty and customer following.   For example, our local store offers an in store Starbucks.  That small Starbucks operation really enhanced the store sales and drew customers into that store.   This especially was true in the mornings.  Many people go to these Starbucks ONLY and do not intend to shop in the store.  But, I have seen countless Starbucks customers add greeting cards, special event balloons, gift cards, salads, bakery items to their drink purchases.  The Starbucks that we visited had personnel that offered exquisite service and banter that really made the customer feel welcome and almost like we were in a small town.  With the June 2012 layoffs, the well performing staff was fired or dispersed to other stores.  The staff that replaced those that had to leave had more seniority but failed to provide the level of service and failed to bring a customer following.  The store sales dropped significantly.  We witnessed a huge fall off from one store that had almost all of its top baristas removed.  Within a week of the Starbucks staff change, the morning drink lines were real short with only one or no one waiting.  Prior to the layoffs the lines were often times five to ten people deep and customers would stand around the counter and talk to one another while waiting for their drinks.  Some customers even stayed to carry on conversations with other customers they knew.

 

World Of Warcraft

World Of Warcraft

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World Of Warcraft is simply a stupendous, jaw dropping, eye popping, hugely expansive role playing game. Words can not properly describe this game. You must try it out and take a week or more to experience it. A monthly fee is required. To get started takes a lot of software loading and it is intimidating for most people to get started. We recommend that you find a friend who goes on line to help you begin to level up. We have two complaints. Our principal complaint is the fee structure and logon does NOT encourage family members to play together which, in our opinion, flaws an otherwise perfect product. The second complaint is this game eats up a LOT of time. I can think of better things to do with your time, like read a good book, coach a girl’s soccer team, take the family out to a good restaurant.

Note: This article originally written for the Product Reviews web page and has been lifted into this separate article.

World Of Warcraft Billing Problem

World Of Warcraft Billing Problem

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My past reviews of World of Warcraft has rated this game very high.  As I find with a lot of very large companies, as they grow larger they get less customer friendly.  I recently found out that my WOW account credit card information became inaccurate because my credit union issued me a new card and they change some of the account digits and the account expiration date.   I was notified by Blizzard that my card was no longer working and gave me a web site link to update the card information.  The link did not target my account information but was a generic World of Warcraft Battlenet log in web page.    I selected the account that was having problems and was taken to a page that said my game was frozen and it also showed that World of Warcraft Remote was unsubscribed.  I went to Account Settings at the top of the page and chose Payment Options.  I then changed my credit card information.  I noticed a message to the side of the page:

“To manage World of Warcraft subscription fees and paid services, return to the Account Management homepage and click on the World of Warcraft license that you wish to manage.”

I went to the page specified and only found one option and that was to set up a whole new game subscription.  You go to be kidding me.  Every other subscription service that I use, notifies me that my card will not work in so many days or months and to please update the credit card in advance of expiration.  Every other subscription service allows me to update my credit card information in a direct friendly manner.  My e-mail account for this product showed no warnings that my credit card was to time out with this subscription.  What is going on with WOW?

I submitted a ticket.

I later (June 30, 2012) received a notification that my ticket “has been successfully created”.   A most interesting part of the message reads as follows:

You can view your ticket details and check its status by clicking the link below:

If you can’t click the link above, copy and paste the entire URL into your browser.

As you can see from the text above, there is NO link provided.  So how am I to view the status of my ticket?  This is getting even more lame.

Much later during June 30, 2012, I received a reply to my ticket to my e-mail account.  Here is the gist of the message:

        The primary billing profile is used for our online store (also paid services) and is separate from the recurring subscription. You may need to head to your game management page for XXXXXXX and select “Set Up Game Subscription” to reactivate your account.

Oh, that is nice.  I upgraded my credit card for the on line store?  So I did have to make a new account and waste a lot of my time!   And, they added this little gem that is meant to wast even more of my time:

To reactivate your Diablo III account, and add the Tyrael’s Charger mount back to your World of Warcraft account, please contact Customer Support.

Conclusion:  WOW is a terrific game.  The business side of this company is either lame or immensely disrespectful of the customer (probably both).

AT&T U-verse Update (June 2012)

AT&T U-verse Update (June 2012)

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Something rather curious has been taking place at one of the AT&T old POTS (plain old telephone service) box resting on a major street sidewalk.  AT&T trucks have been parked on the street just next to this box working on it for over two months (currently not finished as of June 18, 2012).  I stopped by and asked what was going on.  It seems that the U-verse system might be suffering from bad cabling from the old POTS system, that is the old twisted wire running from this huge interconnection box to our homes.  Two problems were identified.  First, there are cable runs that are just bad and need to be replaced.  This really shows up when it rains.  Second, the old system of wiring used bridged taps which now has bit AT&T in the pocket book.  A bridge tap was a means for each home to be “seen’ at a number of terminal locations down a long street, for example.  This might be convenient for the installer but having those wires running out past your home and not dedicated just to your home causes some pretty dire consequences when broad band signals run down the wires.  Simply put, signals that are this sophisticated need to ONLY run directly to you home.  DSL signals really go dysfunctional due to signal reflections running down dead end wires (past your home) and reflecting back.   The new U-verse system must go nuts with this antiquated legacy wiring.    (posted June 18, 2012).