I loathe the 16th amendment.

[Stolen Rutters]

Also, it's gotta suck to be in a state with income tax. I visited my fiance's family in November and her brother, Cliff, makes $14 an hour. He showed me his paycheck and he makes $70 dollars LESS than my wage of $9.80. In addition prices and whatnot are similar to what they are here in Florida i.e: Gas.

I felt sorry for the man.

I bet your refund is nowhere near his refund. State tax differential is not even remotely that high. There has to be something else like mortgage interest deduction or different withholding amounts, dependents, etc. If he works in the restaurant industry, they take taxes out of your estimated tip rate as well, based on your total sales for the night. Sometimes waitresses see take home pay in the tens of dollars from all the taxes withheld for tips.

I know people who take zero deductions just to get the taxes they overpaid back in one big lump in April.

 

[ummmm........]

Every person has a right to choose for themselves and I respect that. I was hoping to provoke you into explaining to us why you dislike tourists, especially more than something as unloved as taxes.

I don't particularly. I was just pointing out that it's Florida's tourists that allow the state to be without an income tax.

 

[JerichoHill]

We have a sales tax? VAT: seems ok in theory with strict controls on lending as we used to have, but it relies on a social security system too. The poor should in theory spend less, they are poor, but with credit cards and the lack of common sense in many people this doesn't work out that well. Thus the banks extensively make the most money out of those who need credit the most, milking peoples stupidity for all it's worth, it's frustrating to see it, but there's little I can do. And we live in a free country. Your free to be an idiot, free to be unwise, and free to have your pockets fleeced by the unscrupulous money lenders

No, the poor have to spend a higher percentage of their income just for neccesities, and therefore cant cut consumption as much as a wealthier individual would in response to a incentive to not consume (which is a sales tax).

 

[JerichoHill]

You have me as having 2 more paychecks per year (12*2). So that comes out to ~24k per year. I think you're failing to account for both city and state taxes (in addition to federal/OASDI) taken out of my paycheck. Either that, or the govt is raping me blind.

Dude, there are 26 bi-weekly paychecks (52 weeks). 2 months have 3 checks. Unless you're not paid by-weekly.

Then, if I bump rate tax rate to 38% total, you are at 68K

If you're pay 24K or 26K in Fed, SS, Medicare, and state taxes, and youre not making 85-100K then youre paying too much in total taxes. Because I'm in that range, and my net tax burden last year was less than 24K

 

[JerichoHill]

Also, remember to use your cash-back cards. I regularly earn 3 to 5% back, which nulls state sales taxes, which is nice

 

[marioh]

Dude, there are 26 bi-weekly paychecks (52 weeks). 2 months have 3 checks. Unless you're not paid by-weekly.

Then, if I bump rate tax rate to 38% total, you are at 68K

If you're pay 24K or 26K in Fed, SS, Medicare, and state taxes, and youre not making 85-100K then youre paying too much in total taxes. Because I'm in that range, and my net tax burden last year was less than 24K

I'm not paid bi-weekly, I get 2 checks per month, which comes out to 24 per year.
And that adjusted total is in the right neighborhood. Though I must admit, I'm not even sure what my yearly salary is exactly anymore (I do know it's less than 100k ), without digging up old income tax forms. Income that's taxable varies for me year to year, depending on other factors.

edit: also keep in mind I'm a resident of New York City, which is another tax added to rest of them.

 

[Sidhe]

I loathe your entire constitution who the hell has one anyway

 

[JerichoHill]

I'm not paid bi-weekly, I get 2 checks per month, which comes out to 24 per year.
And that adjusted total is in the right neighborhood. Though I must admit, I'm not even sure what my yearly salary is exactly anymore (I do know it's less than 100k ), without digging up old income tax forms. Income that's taxable varies for me year to year, depending on other factors.

edit: also keep in mind I'm a resident of New York City, which is another tax added to rest of them.

I dunno, you may be getting gipped, what employer doesnt pay biweekly. In any case, if youre paying that much in overall tax...youre paying too much. Check your withholding to see if its right.

Im in DC, so my tax situation is like yours, but I do alot to bring down my net taxable income.

 

[Cuivienen]

The poor should in theory spend less, they are poor, but with credit cards and the lack of common sense in many people this doesn't work out that well.

The poor do spend less, but it's a greater percentage of their income. Take, for example, food. Someone who makes $10,000 a year and someone who makes $500,000 a year both need to buy food. The wealthier person may buy more expensive food (in fact, the wealthier person almost certainly buys higher quality, more expensive food), but no more than three to four times more expensive while making fifty times the income.

This is repeated across the "essentials", as our society considers them: food, homes, plumbing, electricity, heating, transportation, internet, phone lines, etc. The rich spend more, but not so much more as to make up for the income disparity ($10,000 v $50,000 for a car, $100/week v $400/week on groceries, $50,000 v $500,000 for a house, etc.) The poor will thus always be spending a much larger percent of their income on essentials than the wealthy. The wealthy may then spend additional money on luxuries, but spending on luxuries does not make up for the disparity either when 90%+ of the poor's untaxed income goes to "essentials" while only (as an example, I don't know a statistic) ~20% of the wealthy's untaxed income goes to (more expensive and higher quality) "essentials".

 

[IglooDame]

I dunno, you may be getting gipped, what employer doesnt pay biweekly. In any case, if youre paying that much in overall tax...youre paying too much. Check your withholding to see if its right.

The largest employer on the planet, for one - the US Dept of Defense.

 

[Sidhe]

The poor do spend less, but it's a greater percentage of their income. Take, for example, food. Someone who makes $10,000 a year and someone who makes $500,000 a year both need to buy food. The wealthier person may buy more expensive food (in fact, the wealthier person almost certainly buys higher quality, more expensive food), but no more than three to four times more expensive while making fifty times the income.

This is repeated across the "essentials", as our society considers them: food, homes, plumbing, electricity, heating, transportation, internet, phone lines, etc. The rich spend more, but not so much more as to make up for the income disparity ($10,000 v $50,000 for a car, $100/week v $400/week on groceries, $50,000 v $500,000 for a house, etc.) The poor will thus always be spending a much larger percent of their income on essentials than the wealthy. The wealthy may then spend additional money on luxuries, but spending on luxuries does not make up for the disparity either when 90%+ of the poor's untaxed income goes to "essentials" while only (as an example, I don't know a statistic) ~20% of the wealthy's untaxed income goes to (more expensive and higher quality) "essentials".

I know I'm not an idiot, it's the idea that x is right, and always will be that irks me. Think people. I'm bored with trite answers, if x is fine and it works it's ok, if it isn't it doesn't so you need y? Is this hard to grasp or have I missed the point, am I going to get lectured on why x works when it patently doesn't again? Or are you going to learn to think for yoursleves and not rely on what you are told? Might happen but not in my lifetime. x is just so comfortable.

 

[marioh]

I dunno, you may be getting gipped, what employer doesnt pay biweekly. In any case, if youre paying that much in overall tax...youre paying too much. Check your withholding to see if its right.

Im in DC, so my tax situation is like yours, but I do alot to bring down my net taxable income.

I get paid salary, and the company I work for is a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq, so the employer isn't shady or anything like that (or so it seems).

Yeah, a major part of my problem is lack of deductions. I'm single, don't own a house, no kids. So I basically end up getting taxed up the wazoo.

I do need to change my withholdings, though I don't really get all that much money back at the end of the year (around $1000-$1500). Ideally, I'd like to owe the government money at the end of the year, instead of the government holding my money for the year.

 

[Cuivienen]

I know I'm not an idiot, it's the idea that x is right, and always will be that irks me. Think people. I'm bored with trite answers, if x is fine and it works it's ok, if it isn't it doesn't so you need y? Is this hard to grasp or have I missed the point, am I going to get lectured on why x works when it patently doesn't again? Or are you going to learn to think for yoursleves and not rely on what you are told? Might happen but not in my lifetime. x is just so comfortable.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Sales taxes are bad, period, end of story. Income taxes are not necessarily good, and I've heard some interesting proposals to work around them, but sales tax is the real "evil tax".

 

[Whomp]

I know I'm not an idiot, it's the idea that x is right, and always will be that irks me. Think people. I'm bored with trite answers, if x is fine and it works it's ok, if it isn't it doesn't so you need y? Is this hard to grasp or have I missed the point, am I going to get lectured on why x works when it patently doesn't again? Or are you going to learn to think for yoursleves and not rely on what you are told? Might happen but not in my lifetime. x is just so comfortable.

What are you on about Sidhe? Cuivienen is right.
The sales tax (or for that matter the VAT tax) are truly the most regressive of all taxes. Am I missing something here?

If things like cigarettes/alcohol are heavily taxed I have no problem with that type of regressive taxes.

 

[Nobody]

Utterly false part in bold. No...its not free. You pay a crapload for it, you just think its free because you dont see the money changing hands.

And while we dont have an income tax where I live, we do have like a 9% sales tax instead. Buying crap is expensive.

Im being screwed over here, i have a 12.5% sales tax on everything and 19.5% on my pay from work (which is the lowest bracket). My doctors still cost me a crap load. University isnt free here.

 

[History_Buff]

'Efficient government agency'? Isn't that a contradiction all by itself?

Any government run operation is rarely, if ever, as efficient as the privately run version of the same operation. You only get to choose government schools, I can choose any school. You only get to choose government hospitals, I can choose any hospital. You can only get government-approved medical procedures, I can choose any procedure available.

Even the Post Office is losing market share to UPS, FedEx, etc. Japan just privatized its Postal Service because private businesses run more efficiently than government ones. Link.

For the issues of education, health care, and package shipment, I will gladly release the government from your assumed "responsibility to provide a service to all citizens", and take care of it myself, more efficiently, with more choice, by making my own decisions rather than passing that choice to a government bureaucrat somewhere who tells a government agency what I can and can't do - with my money.

An efficient government service is hardly a contradiction. Just look at how much the US spends on healthcare compared to Canada or the UK. And yet we (Canadians at least) get a better level of service.

And I can choose any school, any hospital, and any procedure (within reason). Which is just fine with me. As for the postal service issue, it may work in places like Japan, with a fairly high population density all over the country. Here it would not work.

And there are some things, like infrastructure, that simply wouldn't get done without the evil evil government.

 

[trundle]

Or, you know, the police and court systems. As it is, the ability to spend more on an attorney translates to a higher success rate in court: I'd really love to see taxes eliminated altogether and simply put justice on sale. Sounds great.

Libertarians are silly anarchists who happen to make more money (and usually take more showers).

re: The Sales Tax debates above, yes, the poor will always spend a greater percentage of their income. The rich have extra income to invest and/or save. To the individual who mentioned credit cards and such, you're not taking a large enough view of the situation -- a credit card extends your purchasing power fairly narrowly and for a narrow period of time. Yes, they may mean that in any given year, an individual who makes $35,000 will spend more than someone who made $40,000. But over the course of an average lifetime earning (say 40+ years), they'll never compensate for the income difference between a doctor and a janitor. Indeed, unless credit card payments are subjected to sales tax, the person who uses them will spend less on purchases over their lifetime, as they will have to dedicate some of their income to paying interest.

 

[Bad Player]

Because increasing the living standard and general well being of your citizens is a good thing! And again, its not the case that lowering consumption is good for the environment. We have to ask why/what/when/how much?

Being wealthier isn't making our societies happier it seems IIRC.

Why doesn't lowering consumption of e.g. fossil fuels help our environment. Or if we bought less computers then we would create less pollution in their production, damage the natural environment less in getting their raw materials. Or any other item really.

 

[JerichoHill]

Being wealthier means less poor people, and more we can do for those that are still poor in other parts of the world.

Wealth doesn't affect happiness past a certain point. Other things are much more important then.

But if you can't realize that more wealth = better society = less folks committing crime = more aid for Africa/East Asia, then well, I don't know. I don't know how to convince a luddite they're wrong

(Doing what you propose would make the world poorer. Now do you think that's a good idea?)

 

[Bad Player]

Firstly I wouldn't describe myself as a Luddite - some of this is just thinking (perhaps devil's advocate). With our aging population we need to improve productivity to keep living standards the same (or other options).

I realise 2nd and 3rd world countries need more wealth but do 1st world countries need more wealth for themselves? If the answer is no then we could stop economic growth for 1st world countries but allow economic growth for 2nd and 3rd world countries thereby improving their lives but helping the environment. Is this flawed do you think?