Your common sense is misplaced, these are taxes we are talking about. A HUGE number of people get $REFUNDS$ without paying any taxes. They are called refundable tax credits. Some of the federal ones that you might have heard of:
Child Tax Credit
Earned Income Tax Credit [[EITC)
First Time Homebuyer Credit
American Opportunity Credit
Making Work Pay Credit
Adoption Tax Credit
These are huge drains on the budget. For 2010, the EITC was $55 billion in refunded credits alone. Nearly 20% of all Michigan taxpayers were EITC recipients that year.
Taxes are another HUGE source of welfare that most observers overlook.
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