Another “Sterling” Example of “Unbiased Reporting”
Bloomberg.com reports that the number of Federal employees delinquent on their taxes has “gone up 11.5%”. Gee, that means Federal employees are nothing but lazy drones and sacks of excrement taking unfair advantage, right?
Well, not exactly. It’s true that more Federal employees were delinquent on their Federal taxes at the end of fiscal 2011 than at the end of the previous fiscal year. At the end of fiscal 2010, 2.9% of Federal employees – less than 1 in 35 – were delinquent. At the end of fiscal 2011, the rate had risen to 3.2% – less than 1 in 31.
While that fact seems bad, it’s actually essentially meaningless until you know how it compares with the rest of the US taxpayers. And it turns out that when you do that comparison, you get a very different story from that implied by the headline.
At the end of fiscal 2010, 7.8% of US taxpayers were delinquent on their Federal taxes – just less than 1 in 13. By the end of fiscal 2011, that percentage had risen to 8.2% – just less than 1 out of 12.
In other words, Federal employees are less than 40% as likely to be delinquent on their taxes as other US taxpayers, and have been for years. But unless you read the article in detail and did the math yourself, you’d never know that. The story implies the opposite with its sensational headline, and doesn’t bother to make the relevant comparison for the reader.
Shame on you, Bloomberg.com. You’re usually a damn good source of financial info, and are generally fair. But you blew this one bigtime.
Category: Media
What?
You say: “Gee, that means Federal employees are nothing but lazy drones and sacks of excrement taking unfair advantage, right? Well, not exactly.”
I say: “I am offended.”
Only kidding … you are almost spot on!
What you mean almost, Keemosabe? (smile)
I am one of the good guys!
I’ve been a DON Federal employee since 2002 and I’m STILL looking for that comfy govie do-nothing job.
Haven’t seen it; guess I’ll just keep on testing these airplanes the Navy keeps on buying and upgrading.
Oh, and Heywood Jablowme. 😉
Damn, AW1Ed – did you really miss the fact that the last sentence of the 1st para was satire?
By the way, I think I met ol’ Heywood some years back. If I recall correctly, he lives in Ghet Foq’d. (smile)
“Gee, that means Federal employees are nothing but lazy drones and sacks of excrement taking unfair advantage, right?”
Generally speaking, yes, I would say that statement is correct.
So only about half the percentage of fed employees are as lazy as the general taxpaying (or tax owing) population? At least when it comes to paying their tax bill. Hmmm.
That would be about 100% over acceptable limits for me.
OWB: no argument that everyone should pay their taxes on time. However, the article’s implied message is that Federal employees are doing poorly when it comes to paying their taxes on time. The fact is that they’re collectively doing substantially better than average in that regard. Their delinquency rate is more than 2.5x lowerthan that for other taxpayers (e.g., <40% of) and has been for years.
My argument wasn't so much that this is a "good thing", but that Bloomberg's article is misleading as hell - and probably intentionally so IMO. They're simply jumping on the "anti-Federal government" bandwagon for sensational effect.
In many cases, criticism of the Federal government (and Federal employees) is warranted. Here, it's not. And Bloomberg should have known better - and I think they did, and published this anyway.
Not disagreeing with your observation in the least, Hondo. I just have zero tolerance for both the media bias displayed in this article and any tax payment delinquency of federal employees.
How is it any when the employer is the government?
FatCircles0311: the same way as it is for private employers. If someone doesn’t pay all their taxes on time, that counts as “delinquent”.
“Government” here also includes uniformed military, Active and Reserve. I’m not sure if it includes retired civilian and military or not.
I’m pretty sure I’ve served with a few folks in uniform who got in trouble with the IRS over the years.
OWB: with the possible exception of a dispute over deductions or assessments, I have a problem with ANYONE being delinquent on their taxes. I don’t see Federal employees as any different on that score than anyone else. You owe, you pay on time – or make arrangements to pay over time, with interest.
Reality, however, is that some fraction of US taxpayers are delinquent each year. And Federal employees are substantially better as a group on that score than the rest of US taxpayers.
OT: Another example of unbiased reporting: Sport illustrated just named Obama one of their top 50 most powerful people in sports..
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/03/sports-illustrated-names-obama-one-of-the-most-powerful-158904.html