Where Are the 47% of Americans Who Pay No Income Taxes?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/where-are-the-47-of-americans-who-pay-no-income-taxes/262499/#.UKgZdMFdM0Y.facebook

Sep 17 2012 Updated, September 18
David A. Graham

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So let's set that speculation aside and look at who the people are who actually pay no income tax. Romney's statements are a little unclear, but it appears that the 47 percent figure represents all of those who pay no income tax, rather than the Democratic base. His problem is that those people are disproportionately in red states -- that is, states that tend to vote Republican:

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One important note about these numbers: This measures only those Americans who filed for taxes with no liability. Millions more didn't even file; it's those millions, added to the estimated 52 million here, who combine to make that 47 percent.

It's important to remember that just because people aren't paying income tax doesn't mean they're not paying taxes -- they pay federal payroll taxes and state and local sales taxes, for example. Once those taxes are factored in, the tax regime is basically flat. And the reason that most income tax nonpayers don't pay is they simply don't make enough income to qualify to pay. As one might expect, the map of states with the highest poverty levels resembles this map fairly closely. Many of them are also seniors, a highly contested voting bloc. Just more than 10 percent of households pay no income tax because they're retired. They might also be voters in places like Florida who are already jumpy about the changes to Medicare and Medicaid that the Romney-Ryan ticket has proposed -- although they would be mostly unaffected by those reforms.

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Update: My colleague Derek Thompson picks up the baton from me and digs deeper into the demographics of the so-called 47 percent. One important note he makes is that it's often the lowest-income people in these red states who are most likely to vote Democratic -- it's just that the rest of the population is conservative enough to carry the states into the Republican column.

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