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Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.
- JeffJenkins 16y agoI've always liked the idea of a receipt to be given to Canadians at the end of every year telling them what healthcare benefits they got and how much they cost. It seemed like it would make people grateful that they had that service, but it also might make the people who pay disproportionately more than they use angry (and the nature of insurance is that most people put in more than they get)
- mattm 16y agoIf you are under 60, chances are you are paying disproportionately more in healthcare than you are getting. But this is how it goes. A large percentage of your lifetime's healthcare spending occurs in the last 6-12 months of your life. Given the choice, I would much rather pay more for healthcare than I am using. It means I am healthy. My health is more valuable than money.
- hugh3 16y agoNot a bad idea. But why does it say "selected items"? I haven't added the numbers up myself, but one of the comments says that the listed things add up to only sixty-something percent of the total. Where's the other money gone? One might almost think they're trying to make a political point with their careful selection of items (eg. "Combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan" somehow got to fifth place on the list while "bailouts" and "stimulus" are entirely missing despite this being 2009). Anyway, I certainly wouldn't trust the government to give me a receipt which said "selected items" -- deceptive information is worse than no information. Also, since the US federal expenditure is currently about 25% larger than tax receipts, how is this taken into account?
- brown9-2 16y agore: "selected items", if you click through to the PDF there is a footnote attached: >4 Budget calculations are based on budget allocations obtained from the Office of Management and Budget using historical tables from the FY2011 budget submission as well as the Congressional Budget Office website for such items as interest on the debt, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. My guess is that the real cause of "selected items" is that the number of things paid for by your taxes are obviously much larger than could fit on a short list, and has a long tail.
- hugh3 16y agoMy guess is that the real cause of "selected items" is that the number of things paid for by your taxes are obviously much larger than could fit on a short list, and has a long tail. Well, of course that depends how you slice it. Break it down by department and it looks more like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_categor... The twenty-something listed departments account for 97% of the budget (of course there's other government spending which isn't listed explicitly in the budget, I suppose). This doesn't, of course, include stuff like "Smithsonian Museum", which are included on this list to make people feel warm and fuzzy about paying their taxes.
- VBprogrammer 16y agoIf you are ever asked to make a Pie Chart for general distribution please take this as a perfect example of what not to do. This is almost completely unreadable for 6-8% of the male population who suffer from colour-blindness (myself included).
- wtallis 16y agoI don't think that anybody can reliably match all 31 of those colors, particularly when the context changes from similar shades to white. Especially for the big slices, the name needs to be in the slice, not at the side of the chart. The smaller slices can have the names printed in the callout labels along with the percentages.
- Aetius 16y agoThis is, after all, NPR...no surprise the war was prominent as they have a decidedly progressive news team. I won't call NPR liberal, but certainly left of center, and very critical (as they should be) of the wars.
- kscaldef 16y agoI think the bias in the table actually goes the other way. By breaking down, and omitting parts of, military spending, they make it look relatively minor compared to SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. They have also chosen to display SS intakes, not outflows, which is a $400B difference.
- hugh3 16y agoIf you look at the pdf from the think tank which came up with it, you'll see that one of their arguments for doing it this way is that "An educated taxpayer is a progressive's best customer", leaving no doubt what their political agenda is. Somewhat disingenuous from a think tank called the "Third Way", which was originally intended to imply centrism. Still, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank".
- Poiesis 16y agoStill, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank". I don't really have a dog in this fight, but a quick search suggests you may be mistaken. [site:npr.org "right-wing think tank"] os 8 results; [site:npr.org "think tank"] has about 2380. Nothing funny in robots.txt. But you never know, maybe there aren't that many transcripts on there or something...
- carbocation 16y agoAnd 4 results for [site:npr.org "left-wing think tank"]
- amalcon 16y agoWell, they probably could have done the same job by grouping. If they combined combat operations with military personnel, for example, that would bump it up to third-largest. Leaving out specific items is an obvious way to work an agenda into it, but manipulating the groupings could do the same thing, and more subtly at that. With a little gerrymandering, the receipt could say pretty much anything.
- ssp 16y agoThe break-down is certainly important. They could choose to lump all military expenses together, or to break down social security into tiny bits. The results would look very different.
- stuaxo 16y agoThey need to be grouped and have subtotals. (The items on the left, the subtotals on the right).
- japherwocky 16y agoTake it one step further and let people specify what their money goes to. Automate the politicians!
- hugh3 16y agoIt seems like a nice idea on the face of it, but apart from the inevitable chaos which comes from having budgets of government departments fluctuate wildly from year to year, I think it would lead to a world where government departments spend about half their time and money begging taxpayers for money. Every television ad for the first four months of the year would probably be some variation on: "Remember, the FBI does good work! Be sure to remember to contribute to the FBI on your next tax return!"
- grandalf 16y agoThat may still be better than the status quo.
- ghotli 16y agoSeems like a happy medium would be that I get to choose where 10 or 5 percent of my taxes go. The politicians can expect a certain cut, with the rest we're empowered to fund what we believe in. I also don't realistically believe this will ever happen.
- hugh3 16y agoIf you feel strongly about it, why not donate five or ten percent of your income to the government department of your choice?
- grandalf 16y agoI've been suggesting this idea for a few years. A few issues: It should also indicate how much money was actually spent on said item (in the event of deficit spending).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sportsTAKES 16y agoLove this idea - Would also like to see: Return policy - don't like how much the government spent on Amtrak, get a refund (no questions asked). Customer loyalty program - earn points towards postage stamps or a national park pass. Discounts from partner programs - i.e., paying, loyal customers of the US government get discounts with China, GM, Goldman Sachs and other US 'partners'.
- jonursenbach 16y agoIf there's a return policy then most people are going to be asking for a return on everything.
- zacharycohn 16y agoThe counter to that would be that you can only ask for one return per year. The counter to THAT is that people would just ask for the largest amount to be returned to them (Take that, Social Security!)
- anthonyb 16y agoExcept that if you've already gotten your money back, you haven't actually bought it. No security for you if you lose your job!
- smokeyj 16y agoWhich begs the question, why are we forced to pay for something we would just return anyways?
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoso that we have pavements rather than dirty earth to walk on.
- sportsTAKES 16y agoNo doubt. Totally kidding around here, hopefully that was understood. In all seriousness, transparency in government spending would be most welcome.
- jsz0 16y agoI always thought it would be a good idea to let people decide how part of their tax dollars were going to be spent. Set aside maybe 20-30% and let them choose which programs to give extra funding to. I imagine most of it would end up in education and social programs.
- kitt 16y agoAnd this is what I was about to post, but instead of 20-30%, make it 51%. Allow taxpayers to decide where (the broad categories the receipt listed are a perfect starting point) their tax dollars are going. The remaining 49% can be discretionary, let the government decide where that goes: fill in the gaps for items needed, but that no one wants to pay for. Such a policy would give people a sense of power over the money they're paying. I, for one, would begrudge less the paying of taxes if the monies went to programs important to me.
- zumda 16y agoBut then the rich would have a lot more power over the budget then the poor.
- jimmyk 16y agoWell, that's already the case, but I agree in that this would make it considerably worse. If you look at the government as legal force, then this scheme would amount to paying for influence over a group with legal force.
- kitt 16y ago1. That's pretty much already the case (lobbyists are paid by someone, and that someone isn't the poor). 2. You make that sound like a bad thing, when it's not. Given the categories listed on the receipt, which one of those would you really be upset if a rich person decided to put 51% of his taxes to? Medicaid? Pell Grants? How about the National Parks? "If the wars are important to you, use your money to pay for it, stop using mine," is pretty much my philosophy. Having no control over where my taxes go makes me significantly less pleased with paying them.
- aresant 16y agoNice viral night's project would be building a simple yourtaxreceipt.com website, reverse engineering those numbers and making a calculator.
- dkasper 16y agoYour wish is my command: http://www.incometaxreceipt.com http://www.incometaxreceipt.com
- taxreceipt 16y agoI built one too. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745574 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745574
- ryanwaggoner 16y agoYou've got a misplaced decimal in your calculations somewhere, as your numbers add up to less than 10% of what I put in.
- dkasper 16y agoheh, I fixed it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- stuaxo 16y agoMaybe some colour categorisation + colour coding so it's easy to see how much different bits cost. http://imgur.com/gxSxk http://imgur.com/gxSxk As you get more data you could maybe make it possible to drill down to get more detail too.
- zach 16y agoFrom the report: "At best, motivated taxpayers can locate a pie chart on a government website that gives percentage allocations about how large categories of spending are distributed. But these are difficult to find and difficult to understand." This is disingenuous puffery. It's in every copy of the 1040 instructions and is simple to understand. They're actually suggesting a far more complex and entirely non-visual spending report. That's useful, but the existing report is neither hard to find nor understand.
- kqr2 16y agoHere's another nice visualization of US government spending: http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/ http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/
- illumin8 16y agoThis is amazing. I find it incredible that only .100 billion is going towards "Financial Crimes and Enforcement" given the huge amount of fraud and outright criminal activity that has occurred in our banking sector. This is actually down 10% from last year. Regardless of your political views, left or right, this shows you what the priorities of our government are. After the S&L crisis in the 80s, over 1000 banksters and fraudsters were convicted and imprisoned. Why is it that none have been convicted and imprisoned now?
- yummyfajitas 16y agoWhile I'd love to see all the home borrowers who lied on their loan applications jailed, it just isn't going to happen. They are "victims" who need a bailout. Besides, it's probably also not that useful to do. From now on, you can expect banks to do a little more verification, so creating disincentives for mortgage application fraud is not that pressing an issue.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoThe late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan supported sending people statements of what was in their social security. His idea was that if people never saw what was in there, they'd never miss it when it was gone. I think this is a logical extension of that idea, and its great. I'd also like to see the flip side of the receipt contain a guess for how the same tax amount would break down the following year based on current budget trends. That way you could see how the coming year is different from the current year. Complaining about NASA funding is one thing -- seeing that they only get 20 bucks while Social Security gets over a thousand? Puts the situation in much sharper contrast. It's strange that the government works in such an arcane fashion. A simple thing like a receipt for your taxes is probably very hard or impossible to accomplish. It took many years for Moynihan to get his SS statements. I have doubts that this would ever fly. But it is certainly a simple and profound idea.
- kscaldef 16y agoWe do get annual statements from the SSA. The benefit amounts listed on mine are not insubstantial. (Whether you believe those numbers of the long term is a different question...)
- timr 16y agoIt's definitely a great idea, given that members of both major political parties are absolutely loathe to touch the biggest sources of government expenditure: old person benefits (social security + medicare), and the military. Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". With greater public knowledge, perhaps we'd finally be able to move past the irrational demonization of expenses that don't matter (but win cheap political points), and focus our attention on the actual problems.
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- ihodes 16y agoOriginal paper (not blogspam, if you feel okay calling some of NPR that): http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_... This is a brilliant idea, and in the spirit of a democratic republic, I'd say. I'm paying taxes; it'd be nice to know what exactly I'm paying for. I'm also for listing all the expenses; down to the ones that end up costing you a millicent. Perhaps yet more feasible would be setting up a real tax website, with real information, and accessible tax records for all. On this website you could also find your receipt. If only…
- city41 16y agoBut it's not the entire story. Just because X dollars was spent on the military for example, how much of that X was actually put to good use? As a former employee of a military contractor, I can attest there are entire companies built around taking advantage of how inefficiently the government spends its money.
- joezydeco 16y agoFunny, my local county government lists where all the taxes go. It's amusing (or enraging, I guess) to see we still pay for a Tuberculosis sanitarium.
- brettmjohnson 16y agoWhy does this surprise you? Since deficit spending is generally disallowed for state and local governments, nearly all sizable projects are funded through bonds. Bonds are basically loans with a promise to pay back in the future, generally with tax revenues. So you are paying off that 99 year bond to build a TB sanatorium built in the 1930s. We are doing the same thing today. My grandchildren will be paying for the school repair and high-speed rail bonds that passed a couple of years ago here in California. Their grandchildren will be paying off the anti-global-warming school air conditioning and hyper mag-lev rail bonds that will be put forth 25 years from now.
- joezydeco 16y agoDidn't think about the bond angle. Thanks!
- wuputah 16y agoI do like the idea, but a cursory look at their 'receipt' and where the numbers come from showed a pretty large flaw: half of social security and medicare is paid for by employers. Unless you consider your salary to be an extra 8.65% than it really is, you're not accounting for all the taxes the government receives based on your paycheck. Although this is really a "hidden tax" on your paycheck, most people don't think of it as part of their salary (which is why they do it this way). There's also other types of taxes paid by non-individuals, like corporate taxes, estate taxes, and the like. In any case, it means the numbers in their receipt for SS and Medicare are off by a factor of 2, so you should evaluate this only based on the idea, not on their actual numbers. (Not to mention there are likely an abundance of other problems with this method, like spending that is not part of the budget, or when the government is over-budget and issues bonds to pay for it.)
- d_c 16y agoNo secret services?
- julian37 16y agoI wonder if these numbers are made up or have any basis in reality. One item that caught my eye was spending on the DEA of only $3.14: Wikipedia puts yearly spending on law enforcement related to the War On Drugs at about $44 billion [1] and gross federal tax revenue for 2009 at about $2.1 trillion [2]. This works out to roughly 2% of tax revenue spent on the War On Drugs. For the $5,400 of federal income tax in the linked example that would work out to more like $100 rather than $3, no? Of course, the Wikipedia article doesn't state how much of the $44 billion goes to the DEA and how much goes to other law enforcement agencies. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs#Costs_to_taxpayers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs#Costs_to_taxpayers [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Major_receipt_categories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Ma...
- btilly 16y agoAccording to http://www.justice.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm http://www.justice.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm, we spent $2.602 billion on the DEA in 2009. That would make the naive figure $6.69. However the USA ran a $1.4 trillion dollar deficit. That means that fully 40% of federal spending was paid for by future debt, not taxpayer revenue. That reduces the figure spent on the DEA down to $4.015. As for the remaining difference, I suspect that the numbers don't count social security as a tax (officially it is not a tax, and officially money transferred from social security to the general revenue via purchases of treasury bonds is debt owed back to social security at some future point) which reduces the amount that comes out of your actual federal income taxes. Furthermore the USA has some other forms of revenue. Such as tarriffs and fines. Put that together and I can believe that the figure given is reasonable.
- mediaman 16y agoDEA's budget is much smaller than total spending on the "War On Drugs" (not sure how that number is calculated; spending against illegal drug manufacturing, distribution and consumption happens at many levels of law enforcement). Their 2009 appropriations were $2.6bn. http://www.justice.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm http://www.justice.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm
- 16y ago
- stuaxo 16y agoThings should be grouped e.g. all military stuff with a subtotal in there.
- JohnAllen 16y agoThe denominator should be tax receipts, not federal spending. Foreign countries and our Federal Reserve actually made large contributions this past year (both do every year we have a budget deficit and every year the money supply increase- this is most every year for the past few decades). This is not to suggest that Americans won't eventually pay for all of this year's expenditures, we eventually will. In the case of the Fed, consider their new money printing and subsequent spending to be a tax of everyone that holds dollars at the time of the printing/spending.
- aguynamedben 16y agoInterest on the National Debt: $287.03 Principle on the National Debt: ???
- olegkikin 16y agoTaxpayers should be able to choose where their taxes go. Like when you file your tax return, check some boxes. If you like paying for renewable energy, great. If you like funding the war, your choice.
- mmaunder 16y agoIf an administration ran with this as their only platform, they would probably get my vote. It's brilliant.
- xsive 16y agoI don't see the point. If you want a "receipt", read a Budget overview article.
- uptown 16y agoMy unrealistic idea for changing how taxes work is allowing me to designate which programs my cash goes towards. Make it kinda like the old Wheel of Fortune ... where you've got $x to spend on stuff that's priced 5 times what it's supposed to cost. If I want to buy 0.003% of that winter's salt supply for the road, or 0.00001% of a Predator drone ... at least I'd know where my taxes supposedly went.
- hansef 16y agoTotally offtopic, but m company did the site for Third Way earlier this year and I love the S3 CNAME'ing I added at the last minute before launch: http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_... Always fun to see a project you were involved surface on NPR. ;)
- ck2 16y agoThere's something bogus about those war numbers, it's far too low. The US has a $700 Billion ANNUAL military budget (more than every other country combined). Something is being hidden in other numbers because of all the cost to support military and their families (taxpayer paid "free" housing?) and thousands of military are coming back with traumatic injuries that previously would have been a one-time funeral cost but now are surviving with extremely expensive, continuous medical support and therapy costs (and disability pay for them/family). Where is the "homeland security" portion in that receipt? Are we to believe the billions in security theater at airports is free and not funded by taxes? What about the billions doled out to local governments under the guise of "homeland security" so law enforcement can buy new toys to abuse? Where are the secret military projects budget in that receipt (like their own space shuttle, military satellites and other stuff we aren't supposed to know about so their budgets are hidden?)
- arethuza 16y agoI would dearly love the UK government to send me a statement every year explaining what it has done with my taxes and detailing my share of the liabilities it has been running up on my behalf. In fact, I want it online and I want to be able to drill down as far as I want into the data. Of course, my desire for such a thing is balanced by the fact that such a project if carried out in the same way as most public sector IT projects would probably cost a hundred billion and not actually work.
- jasonkester 16y agoScrew receipts. What I want is a bill. The IRS seems plenty good at figuring out how much I should have paid in taxes and hounding me about it. Why not do those calculations in February and send me a bill: "We calculated that you owe $14,278 in taxes this year. Please submit payment along with the stub below. Alternately, you may choose to submit a tax return for our review." Government gets their money. I save a bit of hassle in April. Sorted. I mean sure, they'd end up overcharging you by a few percent, but really that amounts to <$1,000. My time is worth a lot more to me than that. Send me a bill telling me what I owe and I'll pay it.
- TGJ 16y agoI don't think your idea would ever work. I think the way the tax system gets by everyday with all the corruption and waste associated with it is by the simple premise "Out of sight, out of mind". Taxes are paid by the average Joe a little at a time, I think most Joe's would simply freak out if they received a total sum bill at the end of the year. Actually, your idea would work in a perfect system, but we know how rare those are.
- jasonkester 16y agoI imagine they'd keep track of your withholding, so the "bill" would be for the difference between what you'd paid already and what you owe. Just like your current tax return. In the case of a refund, it might even take the form of a check that, if cashed signifies your intention not to file a return.
- TGJ 16y agoWhen you put it like that, I'd sign up.
- monos 16y agoin austria everyone pays ~7% into the public health fund. by law the insurrance is bound to send you a letter listing the benefits you recieved (per quarter i think). sometimes mind boggeling number - e.g., several thousand euro for a short hospital stay - sometimes zero.
- untamedmedley 16y agoThe way some of the line items are written/described is very misleading. Setting aside money for "Low Income K-12 students" or Foreign Aid or Amtrak (with prices as high as flying and quadruple the travel time) does not necessarily mean that investment is getting results. I'd only trust a receipt like this if it were annotated with hard numbers on how my dollars turn into meaningful progress.
- eof 16y agoMissing like 2.2k
- mkn 16y agoThere's a lot of naive love here for a deeply flawed idea. First, what is suggested in this article is not a receipt, but a breakdown. A sales receipt for a car, for example, doesn't start out, "5 tires (4 on vehicle, 1 spare), 2 axles..." It just doesn't work that way. You buy "government" with your taxes. Even if you did get an itemized receipt for a car, that would be far easier than what's proposed here. You can always just point to the car and account for the parts. The part is either there or not, and meets specifications or not. The reason that government and spending are these intractable issues is that the parts can be arguably there or not, and arguably working or not. As long as you can't opt out of all or a portion of your taxes, in other words, as long as tax policy is sane, the only "receipt" you should get should specify that you paid the amount you calculated. Any other discussion or education about costs and allotment should happen in a forum that at least has a chance of shedding some real light. Finally, if the receipt ever became the focus of public attention, politicians will just monkey with the categories until you're happy again. It will cease to be an information tool and become an influence tool. It will merely add another layer of intractability to an already byzantine bureaucratic system.
- emit_time_n3rgy 16y agoHere's a breakdown of how much of one dollar goes to what http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2010 http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2010 26.5 cents/military, 20.1c/health, 13.6c/debt, 3.5c/vets, 2c/edu