Fact Checking the President’s Tax Claims

It seems the President has decided to join along with Warren Buffett in decrying the fact that his (considerable) income is (unfairly) taxed at a lower rate than most middle-class Americans. In a recent speech, he suggested that his effective tax rate was lower than someone earning $50,000. It’s a potentially compelling talking point – that is, if it were true. Cut to Brooks Jackson of FactCheck.org in USA Today:

President Obama’s claim that he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher making $50,000 a year isn’t true. A single taxpayer with $50,000 of income would have paid 11.9 percent in federal income taxes for 2010, while the Obamas paid more than twice that rate — 25.3 percent (and higher rates than that in 2009 and 2008). And if the $50,000-a-year teacher were in Obama’s tax situation — supporting a spouse and two children — he or she would have paid no federal income taxes at all.

Of course, Brooks did have a little help from one of the Tax Foundation’s analysts:

A family like the Obamas — with two children under age 17 — would actually have received a $37 tax refund in 2010 on income of $50,000, thanks largely to the $1,000 per child tax credit and Obama’s $800 “Making Work Pay” tax credit. Those are our calculations, which we confirmed with Nick Kasprak, an analyst at the Tax Foundation.

Read more about income taxes here.