Do you think we are really taxed too much in the US?

No, we are not taxed too much, particularly not the wealthy. From 1939 the top marginal income tax rate in the U.S. didn’t drop below 70% until Reagan was elected. Reagan drastically reduced taxes and the deficit soared to unheard of levels. For most of that pre-Reagan period the U.S. experienced a booming economy and unprecedented growth. But because the economy dipped a bit under Carter and resurged under Reagan we continue to believe that high taxes stifle economic growth and low ones promote it. In spite of the decades of evidence to the contrary.

No. If you look at the tax rates in most European countries, they are about the same or more. They enjoy most of the same rights and freedoms we in the US do. Plus some have free health care systems. I would gladly pay more taxes if it meant everyone in the country had some kind of health insurance.

The taxes are disproportionate in who takes the hardest physical hit from the IRS.

A single worker with no kids, who makes $28 thousand a year… will end up paying about $3,000 in payroll taxes… and with little or no refund of any of that.

That $3,000 is literally their health or car insurance money. A person cannot live a life on $28K and still afford insurance. Much less vacations, luxuries, and restaurants.

Meanwhile… there are billlionaires who pay 75% of their income, but their income is astronomical. They could easily afford to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more… and not even feel it.

The fact that we don’t judge taxation by how hard it hits the taxed person is really sad and illogical.

Some people have to give up a plasma TV to pay taxes. Other people literally have to give up healthy food. Or medicine.

And some people, don’t feel a thing, when they are taxed. Yet they are the ones who tend to worry about taxation the most, politically.

@Kraigmo Right in principle, wrong on numbers.

we pay high taxes here but I’m australian and it seems like it was way way more there.

@Snarp, you gotta include payroll taxes as a whole, including the “matched” portion the employer pays. That “match” is really YOUR money. The amount extra you’d receive if there were no taxes.

So add up Fed Income, plus FICA, plus the match, and it comes out to about $3000 a year. And I know this cuz i used to make $28K a year.

Take a peek at this.

I think the tax system needs to be revamped in a big way to put things in perspective. I totally agree with Kraigmo on this one. We don’t judge taxation by how hard it hits the taxed person. Either that or we need to go to a flax tax system because everything is so very complicated and if your like me and made a massive boo boo, you end up paying for it big time.

I don’t think so at all. It seems to be one of those kinds of things that people complain about ‘cause they’ve got nothing else to talk about – a running meme to make the privileged (and we’re all privileged in many ways) to feel like they’re being taken advantage of

@Kraigmo Not wrong on payroll taxes, wrong that billionaires pay 75%. The top marginal tax rate is 35%. Also in many places in the U.S. you could live and buy insurance on $28K, but that’s beside the point.

@Tenpinmaster But a flat tax only increases the impact on the poor.

@Snarp, yeah I see what you mean, and I can’t disagree with either of that. I said 75% so no Foxconservatives with their phony charts would come in. I wanted to match their phony charts and still make a point.

But you are correct.

How about Nobody who makes less than $35K a year pays ANY Taxes, because that’s basic living money. And then a flat tax on incomes that rise above that.

Actually though… perhaps no income tax at all. And instead use federal sales tax on all non-food, non-medical items and (and not your first house, either).

This would hit everyone fairly. Those who buy yachts and Rolexes would pay massive taxes, as they should. Those who buy no material items at all, would pay no taxes.

I think we did just find with a heavily progressive income tax for decades, and we should go back to it.

We are not taxed enough.

I want a flat tax too. If @Snarp wants to not tax people below the party line at all, I am fine with that, but middle and upper classes should pay the same percent, because right now the super rich pay much less. The top 400 earners in the US pay around 17% in taxes.

I agree with the OP that we should put in place a temporary tax increase to pay off the deficit along with cutting spending, and continuing to look at the budget.

Currently I live in TN and I have never met people so against taxes. They also generally have shitty schools here, and their politicians are terrible.

@janbb Oooh…controversial. :P

Any way you look at it, a flat tax hurts more for the people on the low end of the economic spectrum. Progressive taxes are the way to go.

Considering that you’re talking about the USA:

Yes, I think so. And especially so, considering that we routinely run deficits that indicate spending beyond the revenue received. So that “taxes” us insidiously in inflation, eroding the value of our future earnings and investments.

In addition, we tend to think in terms of “Income Tax”, because (especially at this time of year) that’s a huge bump in the road that most of us have to get over by April 15. But there are so many other taxes! Sales taxes (State, county and local), excise taxes, property taxes, auto registrations based on the value of the automobile (which is another property tax), FICA and Medicare tax, which are regressive taxes that fall disproportionately on those least able to pay, inheritance taxes… the list goes on and on.

Yes, we’re taxed too much for the value received. I wouldn’t actually have a problem paying as much tax as I already do—wouldn’t say a peep in protest—if I could see the value that my taxes put into society. But it seems that the more tax I pay, the worse the government wastes it. Consequently, I think we pay far too much.

When you consider that, technically, income tax is unconstitutional, yes.

@CyanoticWasp nailed it. I am fine with paying state taxes because I know they get used for education and health care. (As far as I’m concerned California can keep my refund this year.)

But federal taxes can suck it. I don’t want to pay for this fucking war.

I’m with @CyanoticWasp on this one.

income tax, property tax, gas tax, personal property tax, sales tax, alternative minimum tax, use tax, user fees, payroll tax, FICA, Medicare tax, special war tax on the table in Congress, and this is only a few of the many taxes ... Hell yes I’m over taxed. The government(s) take two out of every three dollars that I make. This alleged government has turned taxation into a wealth transfer mechanism. The government(s) take my hard earned dollars from me, and give them to whomever they (the gov’t) believes should have the fruits of my labor.

@Nullo Funny thing about what’s constitutional and what’s not. The constitution defined a process for making final determinations on that, and that process makes the Supreme Court the final arbiter of what is or is not constitutional, not the opinions of anti-tax zealots.

I’m still waiting for one of these people who keep claiming the government takes some ridiculous portion of all their income to show me the math on that.

Of course one of the reasons for high state, county, and local taxes is the loss of funds that the Federal government used to distribute to states, counties, and municipalities that got stripped out by Reagan and Clinton era spending cuts.

@UScitizen >> “The government(s) take two out of every three dollars that I make.”

Really? For real? May I gently suggest that it might be time to get a better tax accountant?

@Snarp, where do you think the Feds got the money to distribute to the states and localities in the first place? “The government” doesn’t have money.

@CyanoticWasp I’m not an idiot, I know where they got the money. The point is that if we are going to consider all these taxes too we should also consider that they wouldn’t need to be so high if the federal government hadn’t abdicated its responsibilities in many areas that it used to fund.

I’m curious as to what the people who say they are taxed too much would purchase with the money they saved.

People complain about taxes all the time, like they don’t get anything for there money. Don’t they appreciate being able to call the police, or fire department, or driving on decent roads, or being able to go to the national parks, having decent air and water quality, public education. There are so many things people take for granted that their taxes go to.

I think we should add the average cost of medical insurance when we talk about our tax rate. Especially when we’re comparing our tax rate to that of countries with universal health care.

@Snarp, you don’t need to tell me that you’re not an idiot; I know that. But what do you mean “if we are going to consider all these taxes too”? Of course we’re going to consider them! We’d be utter fools not to—and we’re not that, either.

I’m not an anarchist; I don’t get all foam-at-the-mouth and hand-waving about the total illegitimacy of government. But any thinking person has to admit that there is a fair amount of illegitimacy. And then the conversation could be, “Well, how much do you think is illegitimate?” My answer to that might be—almost certainly is—“more than you think”. And it’s that amount of “more” that is “too much” to me.

@stump, no, I don’t appreciate a lot of police activities, such as the War on Some Drugs, for example. But that’s incidental to the tax issue. (Not to mention the confiscatory powers of the police, so that ‘suspects’ have to sue for the return of their cash and other valuables after some confiscations.) And decent air and water quality have little or nothing to do with taxes. Public education—we shouldn’t even get started. The most expensive school districts in the country are also the worst. That is a perfect illustration of my “value” argument.

@stump

Public education is a joke, at least in Florida.
My water comes from the well in my backyard.
The government doesn’t touch my roadway.
The police are more likely to fine me than help me.
The fire department hasn’t done anything useful in this area in years, unless you call showing up at non-fire related emergencies with their big, expensive truck that gets ⅓ mile to the gallon something “useful”.
We have no useful public transportation in my metropolitan area.

And on top of all that, I can’t afford to catch a communicable illness, unless I want my car repossessed.

@Seek_Kolinahr, is your position that people shouldn’t be taxed for things they don’t use, or don’t ideologically support?

That would be problematic.

@Snarp ok, progressive taxes, I’ll agree with you for now, but then you have to get rid of all of the write-offs that allow the wealthy to pay lower taxes than the middle class. How it is set up now people who can afford good accountants, and afford to buy tax shelters, have an unfair advantage.

@Qingu

It is my position that, if I am going to pay for something, it better be farcking functional.

In 2009, Americans paid less in federal income taxes, as a share of GDP, than at any other time since before World War II. 2010 will be the second lowest.

In 2009, overall federal revenue was at its lowest since 1950.

No, we are not taxed enough.

@CyanoticWasp @Seek_Kolinahr I am sorry that basic services like education, police, fire department, public works, highway, etc. suck so bad where you guys live. I don’t agree with everything the police do, but where I live, when you call them, they come. Maybe you should move to upstate NY. When I refered to water and air quality I meant the EPA. Where I live is the largest superfund site in the country. The EPA and GE are dredging PCB’s from the Hudson River that GE dumped for decades. The insidents of cancer and rheumatoid arthritis are very high here. GE fought against it, but the EPA finally forced them to clean it up.

@stump I used to swim in the Hudson. I can’t believe it when I hear how polluted it is/was.

@Seek_Kolinahr I have a feeling the county you are in probably does not have very high property or sales tax, and your state has no income tax. You most likely pay much less than many people around the country, and I vaguely remember you are struggling financially, so I am guessing your child/children will be going or go to public school. I don’t get it? There are parts of Florida where the schools are ok (although I agree Florida is usually towards the bottom for education at the primary and secondary levels) and where the schools are better is where property taxes are high and the people are accustomed to having decent public schools and demand it. Part of the equation is you get what you pay for.

Here in TN the schools are for shit also, and I have never heard people complain more about taxes than in TN, and the people who have some money put their childen about private school and don’t giev a damn about the public system or the people who are stuck in it. Someone told me yesterday that their children’s tuition for high school is $15K a year EACH (it is not a religious school, so this is not a matter of wanting their kids to have specific religious teaching). It would be way cheaper to pay $5K a year in taxes more and have decent public schools, but it will never happen here, because they don’t believe it can happen.

I think some of the bad feeling surrounding taxes relates to a feeling of unfairness on both sides of the coin.

This also gets tangled up in the notion that the wealthy/vs poor work ethic is different and the poor are poor because they made a decision to be that way.

We are trying to apply something that has a specific value (tax dollars) to alot of things that dont have a direct financial corolation.

So when I made 15k / year at my first non profit did I feel like I paid too much tax, yes.
40k at my next job? Yep still too much tax
100k+ currently, yep too much tax. I look back now and say WTF I pay more taxes than I used to make, and where the hell is the money going?

So yes if feel that I pay too much when the money we give to the goverment is wasted.

From a pure financial perspective yes a 1% increase will have a very different impact accross the different groups of income.

But, when you look at your paycheck being in differenet income levels and see oh look now more money has goneto the federal goverment, you tend to ask some questions:

Did I get more services from the goverment? Nope, less.
Ok well at least the goverment is responsible with the money right? Nope.

It leads you to look back and say WTF

Also when people talk about increasing the taxes on the “wealthy” they forget that at least in our situation our tax rate is allready more than face value, we dont get alot of the deductions avaliable to other people.

Now do I believe that we current progressive tax tables are a bit out of date and or goofy.

Im a little puzzled how people who make 400k and 1.5m can be taxed at the same rate.

@Seek_Kolinahr, the things you mentioned are perfectly functional for a great many people.

@stump, actually, the schools in my part of the country (and the schools my kids went to) don’t seem to be either too expensive or too bad. But Washington DC has the highest per-pupil cost… and the worst results by any measure I’ve ever read. New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles also are high cost / low performance areas.

I don’t mind paying the taxes, it is what they are used for that annoys me. I don’t think the tax dollars are always spent in the most efficacious manner.

@rottenit In 2009, a single adult making $15,000 a year will pay no more than $565 in personal income tax, for an effective rate of less than 4%. Do you really think that’s too high?

@rottenit, the wealth that rich people accumulate does not exist in a vacuum. It only exists because of a vast political, legal, and physical infrastructure which is largely funded by the government. This includes, for example, laws enforcing theft and fraud, police protection against people who would obviously target the wealthy first, roads for delivering goods and transportation for people who typically develop a rich person’s “wealth,” and nowadays, the Internet, which started as the publically-funded ARPANET.

So it’s disingenuous to say that rich people get “less” services from the government. The government provides the infrastructure that enables their wealth to exist in the first place. And they should damn well pay more for that infrastructure.

@rooeytoo Well, what would you cut from the federal budget?

To expand on my post, when I look at the greater access to things like higher education and health care in countries like some of those in Europe that pay much more in taxes, I feel that we do not pay enough. We are not willing to “foot the bill” for a more equitable society. Everyone wants to have their own big piece of cake. I am more in favor of progressive taxes like income taxes than regressive taxes like sales taxes, but unless we can get over our anti-tax mentality, the rich will get richer and the poor will get screwed. Of course, there are many things I would rather not have my taxes go for, but you don’t get to choose. You do, however, get to vote.

@JLeslie The Hudson is much better than it was a few decades ago. But I think commercial fishing is still banned.
@CyanoticWasp I taught for a very short time in NYC, and in my opinion those teachers deserve every penny they get. But I also think that generally public education is better outside of urban centers.

@Qingu More than that, not only do the rich not benefit less, they benefit far more from government spending.

Actually, @janbb tocuhes on what I have observed moving to TN. People here seem to really resent taxes, because they don’t see the bang for their buck, because infastructure, education, healthcare, and other services are done in a such a minimal way people feel jipped for the money they do pay in. There seems to be a “breakeven point” in my mind, where you have to spend enough to see some real positive results of the money paid in, and anything below it feels like money thrown out on the street.

Even more than that there is a tremendous amount of curruption in Memphis government, and I tell people all of the time that not all politicians are such a mess. It makes sense that people do not want to give their money to people who are putting it in their own pockets or being bought off by interest groups.

I started life (and public school) in New York – Staten Island to be precise.

Moved to Florida at the beginning of fourth grade. At first, they wanted to place me in third grade, so I’d be the same age as the other kids. Two weeks into the school year, they wanted to move me up to the sixth grade. (My idiotic mother refused.)

My graduating class went into Freshman year with 456 students. 138 of us walked on Graduation day.

Yeah, there’s an issue with public schooling.

@Qingu That infrastructure argument is a good one, and something that I didn’t consider.
I personally don’t mind paying more taxes, but when you see that tax money going down the drain it becomes frustrating when the fed comes around and says we need more.

@Michael I am lumping too much together in that statement which is not really accurate to the question. Federal tax alone no, but compound that with state taxes, fica, etc. and it starts to hurt more.

@Seek_Kolinahr That is f&!ked up. Did your mom at least let you go back to the 4th grade? I was ahead in school, started Kindergarten when I was 4 in NY, and when I moved to Maryland in 5th grade I was way ahead in some subjects.

Florida overall is run like a southern state, if your not in Dade, Broward, or Palm Beach counties (where the NYers are) especially 20 years ago (not sure how old you are) I expect the schools to suck.

No, but the taxes are not properly spent, because of incompetence and corruption.
@all who complain: unless you are actively trying to change the system for the better, you really deserve whatever you get.

@JLeslie

Yep, same here. Started at four years old (and yeah, she let me stay in 4th grade). And I’m 24 now. You hit the nail on the head, there.

@Seek_Kolinahr NY allowed children to start school if they were 5 before the end of the year, Dec 31. Other parts of the country required a child be 5 by the first day of school in August/September, whenever schools starts. I don’t know how it is now in NY or other schools districts.