2014 U.S. Federal Budget: Taxes & Revenue

Transcript

what do you need to know about taxes and revenue and the role they play in the federal budget i'm jasmine tucker research analyst at the national priorities project and i have answers does it surprise you to learn that corporate taxes account for less than 14 of all federal tax revenue how about the fact that income taxes paid by regular americans account for nearly half or 46 of all federal revenues what's important to keep in mind about tax breaks is they are actually just federal spending just like money we spend on education health care or the military when the federal government approves tax breaks it means less money in the u.s treasury to spend on other things and as individuals we don't all pay taxes equally not even close currently there are more than 200 loopholes credits and deductions in the u.s tax code which disproportionately benefit top income earners those loopholes and deductions will siphon off more than 1.2 trillion dollars of tax revenue in 2015 alone more than the entire discretionary budget or 18 times the size of bill gates fortune about three-quarters of those loopholes and deductions will benefit wealthy americans and corporations who are able to bring down their taxable income by exploiting the complexity of the tax code and as a result these loopholes take away funding that could have been used to support education clean drinking water public transportation and many other important programs interested in seeing more check out mpp's big money in tax breaks interactive tool at nationalpriorities.org