Yesterday, the left-wing group Media Matters complained about Fox News’ use of the National Taxpayers Union’s (NTU’s) report entitled "Who Pays Taxes?." The report sheds light on the massive tax burden placed on the top 50% of wage earners, among other findings.
Media Matters seems to have insinuated that such conclusions must be designed to demand higher taxes on the poor, but NTU is a staunch opponent of regressive ‘sin’ taxes, rising sales taxes, the ‘value added tax’, plastic shopping bag taxes, and more, that hurt lower to middle income Americans. Thus, NTU welcomes Media Matters newfound opposition to taxes on the poor.
Since the data comes directly from the IRS, Media Matters correctly hesitates to challenge NTU’s findings. However, they complain that it is not more clearly explained to be income tax centered data, and challenge the point made by Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade that the top 50% of income earners might, perhaps, already have an overly high tax burden.
Yet, a little more research reveals that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office issues projections that measure the entire federal tax burden, beyond just income taxes. Those findings do not show much difference in the percentage of total burden vs. solely the income tax burden; and the main point Brian Kilmeade was making remains accurate.
CBO projections for “Effective Federal Tax Rates” show that when including all federal taxes, the top 50% of taxpayers are carrying a rounded 90% of the federal tax burden year in and year out. Even relative to their share of total earnings, the top percentages pay more in taxes, beyond what one would consider a ‘fair share.’
Additionally, you may notice that the bottom quintile and occasionally the second quintile have negative tax obligations. Meaning that not only do they have no effective federal tax liability, but that taxpayers actually pay them.
What is even more comical about Media Matters’ attack in this instance: they have done the exact same thing they are complaining about Fox doing! Media Matters has made claims about GE paying “no taxes” based on income taxes only, not taking into account the many layers of taxes a corporation pays outside of the corporate income tax.
Their hyper-partisanship has led Media Matters to essentially complain whenever someone makes a conservative argument based on solid data. Nowhere in their whining was any of the data effectively questioned.
Here’s a good next assignment for Media Matters. There’s a very prominent public figure who has been breaking a campaign promise. Apparently you missed this, but you can start catching up here.
Congressional Budget Office, "Effective Federal Rates Under Current Law, 2001 to 2014": https://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/57xx/doc5746/08-13-EffectiveFedTaxRates.pdf