2012 Responsible Wealth Tax Fairness Pledge

ShareThis

TAKE THE RESPONSIBLE WEALTH TAX FAIRNESS PLEDGE

     
  

"It's outrageous that our taxes have gone down and stayed down, given what's gone on in this country over the last decade."
— RW Members Marnie Thompson & Stephen Johnson of Greensboro, NC

  
     
  

Marnie and Stephen take the Pledge every year and donate their tax savings to UFE's tax work inclunding ending the Bush-era tax cuts, preserving a strong estate tax, raising the capital gains rate, supporting state-level tax fairness organizaing. Last year their savings were over $12,000.

Please join Marnie and Stephen and plow your tax savings back into tax fairness organizing efforts!

  

Put your money where your values are. Take the Responsible Wealth Tax Fairness Pledge today!

Calculate your tax savings from the Bush tax cuts below and redirect those savings to tax fairness organizing.

The country is not broke! Far from it. In fact, the top 1% of the country took in 90% of the income gains in 2010, so they're doing just fine. But lately the folks at the top have not been asked to pay their fair share in taxes. For example:

  • We're taxing capital gains (where most of the richest taxpayers get their income!) and dividends at a top rate of 15% - well below the 35% top marginal rate on ordinary income. 
  • The top marginal tax rate (the rate we tax the last dollars earned by the highest inome taxpayers) has been cut from 91% in 1960 to 70%, to 50%, then down to 39.6% and finally to 35% in 2001 under George W. Bush, where it's been ever since.

Using Responsible Wealth's confidential Tax Fairness Calculator below, you can quickly find out how much you are saving from the low capital gains rate, and the low marginal rates. All you need is three numbers from your tax return (or your best estimate of those numbers, or last year's numbers). And with a few clicks, you can redirect yout tax savings to promote tax fairness.

 

Calculate your Tax Cut

Limitations of the Tax Calculator
This calculator is intended to be educational in value and not to be used as a financial planning tool. Your actual tax savings may be affected by other parts of the tax law, including the child tax credit, EITC, the business tax deductions, educational deductions, and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

Enter your 2011 taxable income
This includes any dividend and capital gains income, but AFTER your deductions* are taken out. Estimate or enter the figure on line 43 of your 2011 Form 1040 income tax return.

*Standard deductions are $5,700 for single filers, $11,400 for married filing jointly, and $8,400 for head of household.

Enter your 2011 qualified dividends
Estimate or enter the figure on Line 9b of your 2011 Form 1040. Enter "0" if you had no dividend income.

Enter your net long-term capital gains
Estimate or enter the figure on Schedule D, Line 15 of your 2011 Form 1040. Enter "0" if you had no capital gains income.

Results

Total Savings from Income Tax Rate Reductions

Tax Savings from qualified dividends and capital gains rate reductions

The Bottom Line: Your 2011 Tax Break

Your 2011 effective tax rate

 

1. Enter your savings from the Bush Tax Cuts in tax year 2011.
Use the tax cut calculator above to estimate your tax cut. If you don't have the information you need to estimate your tax savings yet, please take the Pledge today and we'll remind you to calculate your savings later.

This is an important part of your participation, even if you don't plan to give this amount away, since we hope to use the total amounts to help with publicity efforts.

This information is only used to create overall statistics about the Tax Fairness Pledge. We never use your personal information without your permission.

2. Donate your tax break to groups working for tax fairness. Leave blank if you can't afford to donate part of your tax break, but you still want to sign the pledge statement.

Enter the amount you pledge to donate to United for a Fair Economy (including the Responsible Wealth project) to support our tax fairness work at the national level, including reversing the Bush tax cuts and preserving a strong estate tax.

Write in the name of the tax fairness organization that you are supporting.
Enter the total amount you pledge to donate to other organizations:
Contact Information
(e.g., UFE Website, email from RW/UFE, another publication or website)

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE: We would like to be able to say how many "millionaires" (in aggregate) have taken the Pledge, so your answer to this question will be very helpful. In short, we will not publicize anyone's individual status, but would simply use the aggregate or total number.

Please add any additional comments you would like to share.
Posted in: