The Truth About Taxes

Tax Day has arrived, and while millions of Americans are filing their returns via the taxpayer-supported postal service or the government-created Internet, conservatives are filling the airwaves with misleading, anti-tax rhetoric.

GET THE FACTS
Check out our fact sheet, "Taxes: Myths and Realities,"for the truth about taxes — plus writers David Leonhardt, Sally Kohn, and others.


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Conservative Silliness On Tax Day

By Dave Johnson
April 18, 2011

Conservatives sure do get silly when they talk about taxes. I don't just mean the expressions they get on their faces, or how red their faces get, or the way their hair sticks straight up and their eyes get all big. And I don't mean the way they shake and sweat or even the stuttering. I mean the silly things they actually say. more »

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Conservative Tax Tricks – Did Tax Cuts Grow The Economy?

By Dave Johnson
April 18, 2011

It's Tax Day, so let's talk about taxes. more »

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Conservative Tax Tricks – Are We "Broke?"

By Dave Johnson
April 15, 2011

Conservatives have been saying lately, "We're broke," and need to cut back on the things we (government) do to protect and empower each other. They have a unique definition of the word "we" when applied this way to Americans. For them "we" doesn't mean "We, the People," it means something different. more »

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Tax Tricks: Is Corporate Income Taxed Twice?

By Dave Johnson
April 21, 2010

Conservatives claim that income from corporate dividends is "taxed twice" -- first when the corporation pays its taxes (if it does pay taxes), and then when the recipient of dividends pays taxes on that income. more »

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Tax Tricks - Do Corporations Pass Taxes On To Customers?

By Dave Johnson
April 17, 2010

Here is a tax trick you hear all the time: we shouldn't tax corporations because they just "pass the taxes along to customers." Go to any of the usual anti-tax, anti-government sites and you'll see them trying to trick people with this. more »

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A Tax Trick That Forces Companies To Close Factories

By Dave Johnson
April 16, 2010

Yesterday was April 15, so I wrote about Tax Tricks. Here's a tax trick to talk about: Offshore Tax Havens for corporations. more »

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Tax Tricks

By Dave Johnson
April 15, 2010

How many ways can people be tricked about taxes? Here are a few tricks I have come across.
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The Super-Rich Want You To Hate Taxes So They Can Keep Your Money

By Sally Kohn
From huffingtonpost.com
April 14th, 2010

huffingtonpost.com — The rich want you to think that government is a bad idea for YOU because it's really a bad idea for THEM. They would be more than happy to keep their tax money, send their kids to $30,000-a-year private schools, pay thousands out of pocket to get a cavity filled, fly a private plane here and there because highways would be ruined. But since there aren't enough super-rich folks to rule elections (though they keep trying with corporate donations to candidates) they need our help, too. They need the rest of us to swallow their lie so they can keep getting richer and, as taxes decline by our own doing, the rest of us fall further and further into despair.

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Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer.

By David Leonhardt
From nytimes.com
April 14th, 2010

nytimes.com — Forty-seven percent. That’s the portion of American households that owe no income tax for 2009. The number is up from 38 percent in 2007, and it has become a popular talking point on cable television and talk radio. With Tax Day coming on Thursday, 47 percent has become shorthand for the notion that the wealthy face a much higher tax burden than they once did while growing numbers of Americans are effectively on the dole. Neither one of those ideas is true. They rely on a cleverly selective reading of the facts. So does the 47 percent number.

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Taxes: Myths And Realities

By Isaiah J. Poole
April 13, 2010

President Obama's tax cuts benefitted more than 95 percent of Americans.


The average American is receiving a refund of nearly $3,000—up more than 10 percent over last year—thanks to the Obama tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans [The White House]. Tax reductions that benefit working families include the Making Work Pay tax cut ($400 for individuals, $800 for couples) and changes in the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit that made more people eligible to take those deductions.

Families in the bottom 20 percent of income (up to $19,792 in 2009) received an average tax cut of $604 under the 2009 tax cuts [Citizens for Tax Justice]. The 2001 and 2006 tax cuts under President Bush resulted in an average tax cut for the bottom 20 percent of income earners of just $22 [Tax Policy Center]. The next 20 percent of earners (making up to $38,000 in 2009) got an average tax cut of $628 under the 2009 tax cut. The same group only got an average reduction of $360 under the Bush tax cuts.

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