Friday, April 09, 2010
KITV staffers exceptionally well paid?
by Larry Geller
I just happened to tune through KITV news as they announced that today is “Tax Freedom Day” because “27% of your income goes to taxes” and today is 27% of the year.
Really? I challenge KITV news staff to find anyone who is paying that tax rate. I don’t know if you (KITV) have fact checkers on staff these days, but at least a few of you should have finished filing your federal taxes by now.
This is an ongoing falsehood.
The Tax Foundation itself acknowledges this issue in a methodology paper accompanying its report, pointing out that its estimates reflect the “average tax burden for the economy as a whole, rather than for specific subgroups of taxpayers.” Journalists and others who report on "Tax Freedom Day" as if it represented the day until which the typical or average American must work to pay his or her taxes are misinterpreting these figures and inadvertently fostering misimpressions about the level of taxes most Americans pay. [fair.org, Jonah Goldberg and the Myth of 'Tax Freedom' Day, 4/6/2010]
I’ll send this to them and see if they run the same spot at 10 p.m.
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