The Funny Farm

From the "No $hit, Sherlock" Department

^{Saturday, 7 Promise (AfterLithe), 2005}

Apparently some of the media whores have caught on to the junta's reverse Robin Hood* theory of tax assessment:

The Nontaxpaying Affluent Grew by 15% in One Year. The year being referred to is 2002 for any ditto monkeys who would like to pull out the Clenis^TM and start blaming it for this situation.

[-snip-] The chances of having a large income but not paying taxes on any of it are growing, according to the data, issued in the Internal Revenue Service's annual report to Congress on well-to-do Americans who live tax free. About one in every 436 high-income Americans paid no taxes in 2002, up from one in 531 in 2001 and one in 1,010 in 2000. [-snip-] The I.R.S. measured income in two ways. One was by adjusted gross income, the last line on the front page of the Form 1040 tax return. By this measure, 2,959 affluent individuals and married couples paid no federal income tax, down from 3,385 in 2001, but up from 2,328 in 2000. There were 60 such examples in 1977, when a dollar was worth three times as much as in 2002. On a worldwide basis, 2,551 such individuals and couples paid no tax in 2002, down from 2,875 in 2001, but up from 2,022 in 2000. There were 37 such examples in 1977, the first year the agency disclosed such data. The second measure, giving a fuller picture, was expanded income, which also includes money from sources like tax-exempt interest and untaxed Social Security benefits. By this measure, 5,650 well-to-do individuals and married couples paid no federal income tax in 2002 , up from 4,910 in 2001 and 2,766 in 2000. There were 85 such examples in 1977. Worldwide on this basis, there were 4,922 individuals and couples who lived tax free in 2002, up from 4,119 in 2001 and 2,320 in 2000. There were 64 such examples in 1977. [-snip-]

So, the chances of being a filthy rich bastich and not having to pay any taxes has more than doubled under pRezNit Executroid's reign. Funny how things like that seem to work these days...

We were amazed that they had it down as low as the 64 such examples when they first bothered to start keeping track of such things. And of course it bears pointing out that these are only the ones that have managed to game the system well enough to get away with the IRS knowing they're not paying taxes. We can think of a number of examples of how someone could have a net taxable income that would be more than $200K if it was reported. None of them are legal in any case, and every one we've thought of so far has had so many moral qualms attached to it that it's certainly not going to be on our list of recommended activities any time soon. We know we should be careful what we ask for, but we'd really like to tackle the problem of how to deal with more than a quarter of a million a year** and handle the difficulties involved within living within those means.

Infotained with this morsel by our favorite blogger not aggressive enough to sell furniture, the Suburban Guerrilla.

* - that would be robbing from the poor and giving to the rich for those unfamiliar with the Robin Hood legend.

** - which we'd gladly accept it in Canadian, US, or Australian Dollars, Euros, or British pounds, in case anyone's interested in sponsoring a Force For Good In Our Time...

Posted by (: Tom :) at July 4, 2005 11:18 PM