r/Conservative • u/Pessimist2020 • Dec 22 '20

Americans Excitedly Anticipate Getting Paid With Their Own Money Satire - Flaired Users Only

https://babylonbee.com/news/americans-excitedly-anticipate-getting-paid-with-their-own-money
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u/Little-Reality2459 Dec 22 '20 edited Dec 22 '20

Perhaps you are. Everyone is entitled to take the standard deduction which offsets the taxes owed in the tax tables. The Tax Policy Center has updated its estimate of the percentage of Americans who paid no federal individual income taxes; it was 44 percent in 2018.

Yes, that means of all the tax returns filed, there were 44% of people who paid $0 in federal income tax. They paid sales tax, perhaps state income tax, perhaps property tax, etc. but they did not pay any federal income tax.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tcja-increasing-share-households-paying-no-federal-income-tax

Edit: perhaps your friends pay Federal payroll taxes like social security (OASDI) and Medicare but that is different than income tax.