I won’t name names, but I recently talked to the top campaign manager for a nationally known Republican in Congress.  Considering this fiscal cliff nonsense and Obama’s obsession with raising taxes, I was asking this person some basic questions about taxes in this country.  Unfortunately, this person (a Republican) was completely clueless about how much “the rich” pay or how much you even have to earn in order to qualify as the evil 1%.  How do the Republicans expect to win this argument on taxes if they themselves don’t even know the facts?  So here’s where I, the Talkmaster, step in to give you a short, handy little guide that will help you in any discussion with a liberal on taxes.  These numbers fluctuate (although somewhat slightly) from year to year, so I will give you a general idea …

Question: How much income do you have to earn in order to be in the top 1% of taxpayers?

Answer: About $380,000 AGI per year.

 

Question: What percentage of the income is earned by the top 1% of taxpayers?

Answer: About 20% of the income in this country is earned by the top 1% of taxpayers.

 

Question: What percentage of income taxes are paid by the top 1% of taxpayers?

Answer: About 38% of all income taxes are paid by the top 1%.

 

Question: What is the average federal tax rate for all taxpayers?

Answer: Taxpayers average about an 11% effective tax rate.

 

Question: What is the average effective tax rate for the top 1% of taxpayers?

Answer: Taxpayers in the top 1% pay an effective tax rate of about 23%.

 

Question: If Republicans cave and Barack Obama gets his tax increases on the rich, how long could we fund the federal government with the revenue generated by these tax increases?

Answer: Eight days, and that does not account for a change in behavior.

There are other figures Republicans should be armed with … like how long millionaires actually claim a million dollars in income on their tax returns (50% are only millionaires for one year) or how many “rich” people are responsible for job creation in this country (Obama’s tax increases would hit the job creators who employ half of all the people who work in small business).

If you Republicans want to be taken seriously in this tax debate, you need to be just as educated, if not more educated, on the issue if you want any chance at convincing the American public that you are more qualified to make policy on this issue.