Q: What percent of taxes does the top 1 percent pay and what percent of the income do they make?
A: The top 1 percent of all households got 18 percent of all personal income and paid nearly 28 percent of all federal taxes in 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The top 1 percent now pay a significantly larger share of taxes than before President Bush’s tax cuts,
Issues: Taxes
Americans Making More than $250,000
Q: What percentage of the U.S. population makes more than $250,000 per year?
A: Roughly one in 50 households will take in more than $250,000 next year.
Taxing the Stimulus?
Q: Is the economic stimulus payment taxable?
A: No.
You’ve Got Mailers!
A direct-mail piece sent to voters by the Clinton campaign twists Obama’s words and gives a false picture of his proposals: It says he “wants to raise Social Security taxes by a trillion dollars,” a big distortion. Obama has said a “good option” would be to apply Social Security payroll taxes to incomes over $97,500 a year, but that would only affect taxes paid by 6.5 percent of individuals and couples. And he hasn’t formally proposed such a move anyway.
Huckabee Cut Crime and Taxes?
Summary
In the run-up to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Huckabee is running a TV ad featuring graphics that claim he was "tough on crime" and "brought Arkansas' crime rate down," and that he "cut taxes over 90 times as governor."
In fact, the violent crime rate was higher at the end of his tenure than it was the year he took office. And the tax cuts he claims credit for were minor compared with the large increases he approved,
Members of Congress Pay Social Security Taxes
Q: Do members of Congress pay Social Security taxes?
A: Yes, ever since 1984.
GOP YouTube Debate Flubs
The CNN/YouTube debate among Republicans lacked any talking snowmen, but we did note a few false and misleading statements by the candidates.
Huckabee’s Fiscal Record
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has been hit with criticism over his record on taxes as governor of Arkansas. In recent interviews on Fox News, Huckabee responded to some of these questions, but we found him to be misleading and incorrect on several points:
Mitt and Rudy’s Cherry Orchard
During the Oct. 9 Republican debate, moderator Chris Matthews unleashed a mini-brawl between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani over their respective fiscal records. Both men spewed statistics that sometimes seemed to contradict each other. We find that each man was cherry-picking his numbers, sometimes in misleading ways.
Giuliani’s Tax Puffery
A new radio ad boasts that Rudy Giuliani “cut or eliminated 23 taxes” while mayor of New York City. We find that to be an overstatement.