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Why do people have problems with taxes? I don't. Never have. When taxes build schools and infrastructure and provide policing and social support it's a good thi

by apercu 10y ago

Why do people have problems with taxes? I don't. Never have. When taxes build schools and infrastructure and provide policing and social support it's a good thing. When taxes are misused (military industrial complex perhaps) that's an issue with the system of government, not taxes. I do have an issue with the wealthiest people sheltering their money from taxation. This is the 1%. These people (at least the 0.01%) might just move for tax reasons. The 2-5% top earners actually do seem to pay a lot of taxes (at least in the US and Canada). I don't know exactly what the top 5% earn, but some cursory research suggests around $250k annually in North America. As someone who has been near there, yes, I paid a lot in taxes. But I also had spare money to defer some of those taxes. My experience in Canada has been different than my experience in the US. In Canada, over about 120k in salary you start paying a bit more than you would in the US. About 43% or so on everything over 90k. (Please don't rip my numbers, I'm not a tax accountant and just want to make a point). So we have a lot of people who appear to be doing pretty well, and join the rest of the middle in basically supporting the government programs for everyone else in the country to enjoy. But these people are getting more than a 3rd of their income taken in taxes. At 200k per year for a family (look, I'm not asking you to feel sorry for them) that's a big hit. But if you have $10m in assets in the bank, no mortgage, and are bring in 600k per year you might actually be getting taxed close to the person in the first example. But you are left with A LOT MORE money after taxes. And this is the issue for me.

sammydavis 10y ago
I also don't have a problem with taxes. Taxes build our needed infrastructure (here in Seattle we need so much road and mass transit work), they pay for medical care for all of society, services for the poor. There are a lot of irrational beliefs that come at least in large part from the Republican party; they tell people there is endless waste in the govt and they shouldn't have to pay anything - and rich people should pay always less than they pay now and someday you might be rich so isn't it a good idea to have them pay less taxes. I'm fortunate to be a well off software engineer, and the state needs to tax people like me more. I would willing pay lots more in taxes if they could build out the freaking light rail quickly, and get gig ethernet to my house (the last thing is less important :-)).
michaelbuddy 10y ago
well you have waste within 'military industrial complex' the 'educational industrial complex' the 'welfare industrial complex' and the 'medical industrial complex' and more. Within all of those areas there is lavish spending, expensive inflated contracts for services and goods, nepotism, etc it goes on and one. And it's worth breaking down all of them. You can trace the money back to items purchased and wages paid. So it's it's not helpful to just call out one area of spending as waste when either we have good auditing on it or we don't.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  This a million times. The reality here is that its politically easier to simply raise taxes and feed the spending beast instead of trying to reform it and make it more efficient. This is a major problem in representational democracy where the voters are easily swayed to vote against their own interests. Look at how Chicago continues to vote itself bankrupt. They just dont have any leadership options who could trim down the budget and put bloaty public sector unions and their wasteful shenanigans in their place. These types of leaders never make it to the primaries as their corrupt counterparts simply outspend/outfavor them. Taxes become a more delicate subject as you get older and realize that the salary you're making now is pretty much it for life. You'll get cost of living raises but its not like being young where there's nothing but upwards growth AND the tax refund system is very generous with you. Every tax raise then becomes a decrease in your lifestyle, quality of life, retirement, etc. The recent Chicago property tax means one less vacation for my family. We're expected to get 5-10 of these sized tax raises by the time I retire simply to catch up to pension spending deals signed decades ago. This is something to have legitimate outrage over. Meanwhile Chicago is losing population, so yes maybe the ultra-rich don't move, but regular lower/middle class people certainly do due to taxes and cost of living increases: Chicago area has greatest population decline of any U.S. city in 2015 http://wgntv.com/2016/03/25/chicago-area-has-greatest-population-decline-of-any-u-s-city-in-2015/ http://wgntv.com/2016/03/25/chicago-area-has-greatest-popula...
bko 10y ago
Not sure about Canada but most US taxes don't go to the things like infrastructure. Total infrastructure spending in the US (state, local + fed) was $416 billion in 2014. Total tax receipts is about 6 trillion in 2014 [1] or about 7%. Most tax revenue is a transfer of wealth from relatively poor young Americans to relatively wealthy elderly Americans through Medicare and Social Security. That an military spending. Also, the top 1% a very significant portion of federal income taxes: > The top-earning 1 percent of Americans will pay nearly half of the federal income taxes for 2014, the largest share in at least three years, according to a study. > According to a projection from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent of Americans will pay 45.7 percent of the individual income taxes in 2014—up from 43 percent in 2013 and 40 percent in 2012 (the oldest period available). > The bottom 80 percent of Americans are expected to pay 15 percent of all federal income taxes in 2014, according to the study. The bottom 60 percent are expected to pay less than 2 percent of federal income taxes. [2] > In 1979, the top one percenters earned 8.9 percent of pretax income and paid 18 percent of federal income taxes. In 2011, the top 1 percent earned 14.6 percent of income and paid 25.4 percent in 2011 of federal income taxes. I believe the mis-perception of the wealthy not paying anything is linguistics. For instance, since most tax revenue comes from the wealthy, any apparent decrease in overall tax rates greatly impacts the wealthy and is said to "cost" money. So as a thought experiment, suppose taxes went up to 5% and back down immediately to their current levels. The ladder move would have been said to be "costing the American people $X billion." [0] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49910 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49910 [1] http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2014USrn http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2014USrn [2] http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-federal-income-taxes.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-fede...
- mywittyname 10y ago
  > Most tax revenue is a transfer of wealth from relatively poor young Americans to relatively wealthy elderly Americans through Medicare and Social Security. That an military spending. Your sources say that only 28% of tax revenue falls into the category of SS/MC. That's hardly "most". These taxes are both levied independent of Federal taxes and are handled differently. They are both payroll taxes, so they are only paid on wages, not income from investments. Additionally Social Security tax is capped and Medicare is regressive (rate goes down as wages increases). So, while the top 1% are contribute a significant portion of income tax revenue, they don't contribute nearly as much to social welfare (which is by design).
mixedCase 10y ago
>that's an issue with the system of government Well, what do you propose for solving that issue? Because those who believe public spending and taxation should be more limited also believe that there's no simple fix for the accountability issues that stem from monopolized state control over certain industries.
- jpetso 10y ago
  Not the OP, but I think that accountability issues need to be solved mainly by more transparency. Open data for all government activities. Let them provide source data, calculations, meeting minutes, donor lists, office visits, everything that factors into how decisions are made. Let them feel 100x the scrutiny that Peter Thiel is getting. Publish it all proactively, digitally, bot-indexably, instead of relying on Freedom of Information requests. As long as there is free speech, a right to vote and enough information to hold decision makers accountable, people can change the system both by getting into positions of power and by voting them in or out of power. There's no simple fix, there will never be a simple fix, significant changes will likely take decades. That said, governments have a mandate and a goal to improve society. When positions of power are held by people that have neither the mandate nor the accountability to do that job - as is generally the case with businesses and wealthy influencers - then a change in power is much harder to accomplish and you easily end up on the way to centralized control and censorship. Screw the revolution. Screw the every-man-for-himself mindset. Just give me lots of data so we can do the accounting ourselves. Oh yeah, and enough education for everyone to figure out how to analyze those bits. Then, when those who believe public spending and taxation should be more limited get to try, let them give us the same detailed data and make it better.
tn13 10y ago
Taxation is indistinguishable from theft. Government forcibly takes money from hardworking people to spend on things that politicians think are good for us. I am pretty sure if you donate your money to education, infra and other things it will be more efficient use of that money than you giving it to politicians. The biggest reason why I will not pay taxes is because it increases the size of government. War on Drugs, Wars in foreign countries, Civil Forfeiture and other horrible things that government is doing is simply because our government has far more money than it needs. Reducing government revenue is the best way to kill/starve this beast.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  Perhaps when looking through your ideological lens, you fail to distinguish between taxes and theft. But that's a problem of your inability to distinguish, not anything inherent in taxes that obscures them from being clearly identified as a different thing from theft.
  - jjn2009 10y ago
    I don't see what is so ideological about this idea. If someone threatens you with violence or locking you away in a cell without your consent for not paying them that is by definition theft. If I asked you if its okay for a citizen to do this you would obviously say no, now replace "citizen" with IRS swat team (yes these exist) and some how the answer should be that this is some how 100% okay?
    - intopieces 10y ago
      >some how the answer should be that this is some how 100% okay? Yep. Because governments are instituted among men and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. There are clear mechanisms for relinquishing certain freedoms (i.e., the freedom to keep all your money) through representative government. If you don't like taxes, get 'em repealed through the way we repeal taxes. If you don't like the way the government collects taxes, we have a way to change that too.
nier 10y ago
My problem with taxes is that once the net amount for my consultant fee has been raised to include 42% income tax and then 19% of VAT on top of that, I feel ashamed for charging so much money for work I love to do. Need to get over that soon. I heard writing is therapeutic.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  The VAT rate is irrelevant, since businesses don't pay VAT on services.
gizi 10y ago
> Why do people have problems with taxes? I don't. Never have. Fine. However, that is a personal decision of yours. Other people make other decisions. > When taxes build schools and infrastructure and provide policing and social support it's a good thing. When taxes are misused (military industrial complex perhaps) that's an issue with the system of government, not taxes. Why not do it with sandwiches? The government collects 500 dollars from you in taxes and gives a 5-dollar sandwich in return. From now on, taxes are necessary, because how else would we get hold of sandwiches? > I do have an issue with the wealthiest people sheltering their money from taxation. If it were your money, I would understand. It isn't your money. You insist that other people should make decisions as you like them to. Why? And why not the other way around? > But you are left with A LOT MORE money after taxes. And this is the issue for me. Again, it is not YOUR money. It is THEIRS. You cannot impose your opinion of what is right and wrong onto others. I could perfectly do the same, and insist that you must adopt MY views on right and wrong. You could say that your view is backed by government violence, but as you know, violence is not something particularly complex to orchestrate. In fact, it is trivially easily matched. Nowadays we have got people incessantly bombing other people exactly over this kind of problems. Your desire to impose your beliefs onto others, will inevitably turn out to be very costly, because people like you are doing that in too many areas and to too many people. Ultimately, what you believe to be right or wrong will no longer matter. Sooner or later, it will only be what you are willing to risk your life and die for that will matter.

by apercu 10y ago

sammydavis 10y ago

I also don't have a problem with taxes. Taxes build our needed infrastructure (here in Seattle we need so much road and mass transit work), they pay for medical care for all of society, services for the poor. There are a lot of irrational beliefs that come at least in large part from the Republican party; they tell people there is endless waste in the govt and they shouldn't have to pay anything - and rich people should pay always less than they pay now and someday you might be rich so isn't it a good idea to have them pay less taxes. I'm fortunate to be a well off software engineer, and the state needs to tax people like me more. I would willing pay lots more in taxes if they could build out the freaking light rail quickly, and get gig ethernet to my house (the last thing is less important :-)).

michaelbuddy 10y ago

well you have waste within 'military industrial complex' the 'educational industrial complex' the 'welfare industrial complex' and the 'medical industrial complex' and more. Within all of those areas there is lavish spending, expensive inflated contracts for services and goods, nepotism, etc it goes on and one. And it's worth breaking down all of them. You can trace the money back to items purchased and wages paid. So it's it's not helpful to just call out one area of spending as waste when either we have good auditing on it or we don't.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
This a million times. The reality here is that its politically easier to simply raise taxes and feed the spending beast instead of trying to reform it and make it more efficient. This is a major problem in representational democracy where the voters are easily swayed to vote against their own interests. Look at how Chicago continues to vote itself bankrupt. They just dont have any leadership options who could trim down the budget and put bloaty public sector unions and their wasteful shenanigans in their place. These types of leaders never make it to the primaries as their corrupt counterparts simply outspend/outfavor them. Taxes become a more delicate subject as you get older and realize that the salary you're making now is pretty much it for life. You'll get cost of living raises but its not like being young where there's nothing but upwards growth AND the tax refund system is very generous with you. Every tax raise then becomes a decrease in your lifestyle, quality of life, retirement, etc. The recent Chicago property tax means one less vacation for my family. We're expected to get 5-10 of these sized tax raises by the time I retire simply to catch up to pension spending deals signed decades ago. This is something to have legitimate outrage over. Meanwhile Chicago is losing population, so yes maybe the ultra-rich don't move, but regular lower/middle class people certainly do due to taxes and cost of living increases: Chicago area has greatest population decline of any U.S. city in 2015 http://wgntv.com/2016/03/25/chicago-area-has-greatest-population-decline-of-any-u-s-city-in-2015/ http://wgntv.com/2016/03/25/chicago-area-has-greatest-popula...

bko 10y ago

Not sure about Canada but most US taxes don't go to the things like infrastructure. Total infrastructure spending in the US (state, local + fed) was $416 billion in 2014. Total tax receipts is about 6 trillion in 2014 [1] or about 7%. Most tax revenue is a transfer of wealth from relatively poor young Americans to relatively wealthy elderly Americans through Medicare and Social Security. That an military spending. Also, the top 1% a very significant portion of federal income taxes: > The top-earning 1 percent of Americans will pay nearly half of the federal income taxes for 2014, the largest share in at least three years, according to a study. > According to a projection from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent of Americans will pay 45.7 percent of the individual income taxes in 2014—up from 43 percent in 2013 and 40 percent in 2012 (the oldest period available). > The bottom 80 percent of Americans are expected to pay 15 percent of all federal income taxes in 2014, according to the study. The bottom 60 percent are expected to pay less than 2 percent of federal income taxes. [2] > In 1979, the top one percenters earned 8.9 percent of pretax income and paid 18 percent of federal income taxes. In 2011, the top 1 percent earned 14.6 percent of income and paid 25.4 percent in 2011 of federal income taxes. I believe the mis-perception of the wealthy not paying anything is linguistics. For instance, since most tax revenue comes from the wealthy, any apparent decrease in overall tax rates greatly impacts the wealthy and is said to "cost" money. So as a thought experiment, suppose taxes went up to 5% and back down immediately to their current levels. The ladder move would have been said to be "costing the American people $X billion." [0] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49910 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49910 [1] http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2014USrn http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2014USrn [2] http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-federal-income-taxes.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-fede...

mywittyname 10y ago
> Most tax revenue is a transfer of wealth from relatively poor young Americans to relatively wealthy elderly Americans through Medicare and Social Security. That an military spending. Your sources say that only 28% of tax revenue falls into the category of SS/MC. That's hardly "most". These taxes are both levied independent of Federal taxes and are handled differently. They are both payroll taxes, so they are only paid on wages, not income from investments. Additionally Social Security tax is capped and Medicare is regressive (rate goes down as wages increases). So, while the top 1% are contribute a significant portion of income tax revenue, they don't contribute nearly as much to social welfare (which is by design).

mixedCase 10y ago

>that's an issue with the system of government Well, what do you propose for solving that issue? Because those who believe public spending and taxation should be more limited also believe that there's no simple fix for the accountability issues that stem from monopolized state control over certain industries.

jpetso 10y ago
Not the OP, but I think that accountability issues need to be solved mainly by more transparency. Open data for all government activities. Let them provide source data, calculations, meeting minutes, donor lists, office visits, everything that factors into how decisions are made. Let them feel 100x the scrutiny that Peter Thiel is getting. Publish it all proactively, digitally, bot-indexably, instead of relying on Freedom of Information requests. As long as there is free speech, a right to vote and enough information to hold decision makers accountable, people can change the system both by getting into positions of power and by voting them in or out of power. There's no simple fix, there will never be a simple fix, significant changes will likely take decades. That said, governments have a mandate and a goal to improve society. When positions of power are held by people that have neither the mandate nor the accountability to do that job - as is generally the case with businesses and wealthy influencers - then a change in power is much harder to accomplish and you easily end up on the way to centralized control and censorship. Screw the revolution. Screw the every-man-for-himself mindset. Just give me lots of data so we can do the accounting ourselves. Oh yeah, and enough education for everyone to figure out how to analyze those bits. Then, when those who believe public spending and taxation should be more limited get to try, let them give us the same detailed data and make it better.

tn13 10y ago

Taxation is indistinguishable from theft. Government forcibly takes money from hardworking people to spend on things that politicians think are good for us. I am pretty sure if you donate your money to education, infra and other things it will be more efficient use of that money than you giving it to politicians. The biggest reason why I will not pay taxes is because it increases the size of government. War on Drugs, Wars in foreign countries, Civil Forfeiture and other horrible things that government is doing is simply because our government has far more money than it needs. Reducing government revenue is the best way to kill/starve this beast.

bobwaycott 10y ago
Perhaps when looking through your ideological lens, you fail to distinguish between taxes and theft. But that's a problem of your inability to distinguish, not anything inherent in taxes that obscures them from being clearly identified as a different thing from theft.
- jjn2009 10y ago
  I don't see what is so ideological about this idea. If someone threatens you with violence or locking you away in a cell without your consent for not paying them that is by definition theft. If I asked you if its okay for a citizen to do this you would obviously say no, now replace "citizen" with IRS swat team (yes these exist) and some how the answer should be that this is some how 100% okay?
  - intopieces 10y ago
    >some how the answer should be that this is some how 100% okay? Yep. Because governments are instituted among men and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. There are clear mechanisms for relinquishing certain freedoms (i.e., the freedom to keep all your money) through representative government. If you don't like taxes, get 'em repealed through the way we repeal taxes. If you don't like the way the government collects taxes, we have a way to change that too.

nier 10y ago

My problem with taxes is that once the net amount for my consultant fee has been raised to include 42% income tax and then 19% of VAT on top of that, I feel ashamed for charging so much money for work I love to do. Need to get over that soon. I heard writing is therapeutic.

charlesdm 10y ago
The VAT rate is irrelevant, since businesses don't pay VAT on services.

gizi 10y ago

> Why do people have problems with taxes? I don't. Never have. Fine. However, that is a personal decision of yours. Other people make other decisions. > When taxes build schools and infrastructure and provide policing and social support it's a good thing. When taxes are misused (military industrial complex perhaps) that's an issue with the system of government, not taxes. Why not do it with sandwiches? The government collects 500 dollars from you in taxes and gives a 5-dollar sandwich in return. From now on, taxes are necessary, because how else would we get hold of sandwiches? > I do have an issue with the wealthiest people sheltering their money from taxation. If it were your money, I would understand. It isn't your money. You insist that other people should make decisions as you like them to. Why? And why not the other way around? > But you are left with A LOT MORE money after taxes. And this is the issue for me. Again, it is not YOUR money. It is THEIRS. You cannot impose your opinion of what is right and wrong onto others. I could perfectly do the same, and insist that you must adopt MY views on right and wrong. You could say that your view is backed by government violence, but as you know, violence is not something particularly complex to orchestrate. In fact, it is trivially easily matched. Nowadays we have got people incessantly bombing other people exactly over this kind of problems. Your desire to impose your beliefs onto others, will inevitably turn out to be very costly, because people like you are doing that in too many areas and to too many people. Ultimately, what you believe to be right or wrong will no longer matter. Sooner or later, it will only be what you are willing to risk your life and die for that will matter.