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Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.
- theli0nheart 16y agoI made this last night after being inspired by http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130249425&sc=fb&cc=fp http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1302494... All the calculations are done with Javascript. Let me know what you think!
- slug 16y agoTrying with a value of 1e20 , 1e21 gives interesting results. More curious is that using konqueror I get one value but with firefox i get another. Seems to be some bit flipping somewhere, since with firefox I get Miscellaneous mandatory programs $16068258000000004096.00 4096, 16384 , etc but with konqueror i get: Miscellaneous mandatory programs $16068258000000005000.00 Maybe some bug with the javascript interpreter ?
- riffer 16y agoWhy do people always try to break things? This is a serious question pertaining to human nature, not a complaint. I've noticed that anytime I demo something I've built, if the person/people I'm showing have control of the demo they go try to test the outer boundaries of whatever I've built. What makes us want to do that?
- crystalis 16y agoYou get the one-two of potential insight into the particular workings and potential 'unintended cool thing'.
- DevX101 16y agoErrors at the edge cases are usually the hardest to detect.
- anigbrowl 16y agoBecause of what it tells us about the design and utility. This particular tool looks like it will keep working through inevitable period of hyperinflation everyone keeps warning me about, all the way up to the when we cross the National Debt Event Horizon, at which point accounting is suddenly agreed to be an entirely new art form, and computing a restaurant tip requires a PhD in materials science.
- awakeasleep 16y agoIt isn't just human nature. If you have a dog or a cat or have watched videos of animals on Youtube you'd see it has to do with most animals on planet earth. I have a theory: Things have evolved to try and do everything they can do, because nothing is smart enough to act on foresight alone.
- MichaelApproved 16y agoTesting with crazy figures and data makes sense because it can magnify a bug you wouldn't have noticed with normal use. For example you may catch a math error that's only obvious with big numbers.
- theli0nheart 16y agoAh, bizarre. I'll look into it...
- pkghost 16y agomoral of the (as yet untold) story: rocket science and javascript don't mix. browser differences aside, javascript represents all numbers as floats, so as you attempt to store larger and larger numbers, you will find yourself with less and less accurate data. i'd bet that some minor difference in order of operations between the JS implementations of FF and konqueror result in the differences you're observing.
- anigbrowl 16y agoGood idea and good instincts. I hope you have a scalable hosting solution, because the presentation and domain name are so well chosen that I can see you getting millions of page landings by tomorrow. For your own benefit, perhaps some thoughtfully-filtered Adwords or so would help cover those costs and/or make you some ca$h. For the site itself, keep the simple presentation but perhaps add + signs to allow people to break things out if they wish. Any large program whose share of the budget people love to complain about often turns out to include some things they actually support, so it has excellent education potential. Discreet links to more advanced presentations like graphs and so forth could later help to build out that initial traffic to become the 'go-to' site for accessible stats, mich like fivethirtyeight.com became well-known for unbiased electoral analysis. A fun thing might be a time machine that let you look back at tax rates of years past, with the receipt getting increasingly yellowed and/or using more and more antique-looking fonts. By the time you get to 1776 everything is in copperplate :-)
- alexyim 16y agoPut it on App Engine
- theli0nheart 16y ago> Good idea and good instincts. I hope you have a scalable hosting solution, because the presentation and domain name are so well chosen that I can see you getting millions of page landings by tomorrow. Thanks, I had a feeling people would like this, but had no idea that it'd be this popular. I'm migrating over to Appengine as soon as I can. > For your own benefit, perhaps some thoughtfully-filtered Adwords or so would help cover those costs and/or make you some ca$h. I put them up about an hour ago, but took them down because I couldn't see them. Turns out I had adblock turned on. I just pushed ads live. > Discreet links to more advanced presentations like graphs and so forth could later help to build out that initial traffic to become the 'go-to' site for accessible stats, mich like fivethirtyeight.com became well-known for unbiased electoral analysis. I think these are all great ideas. I do think a site like this is missing, and we could all stand to benefit from it. > A fun thing might be a time machine that let you look back at tax rates of years past, with the receipt getting increasingly yellowed and/or using more and more antique-looking fonts. By the time you get to 1776 everything is in copperplate :-) Hehe, of all the ideas you've had, this is the best. Moving it up in the queue :)
- peterbessman 16y agoThis is awesome. I passed along that article to some friends, the consensus was "great idea, never gonna happen." Now I get to pass this link along. That makes me :)
- fraserharris 16y agoFYI Income entry chokes on commas (ie: 50,000)
- vinhboy 16y agoThis is nice. Tip: put up all the social media icons.. use sharethis, addthis, or whatever. People like to fb-like more than tweet.
- theli0nheart 16y agoThanks! Just added Facebook, and am setting up the Share This widget.
- hugh3 16y agoWow, very nicely designed, and I love how fast it is. Some clarification on a few of the entries would be nice if you have time. For instance, what does "Healthcare" mean once Medicare and Medicaid are excluded? And what's the difference between "compulsory" and "discretionary" spending (when surely the government could eradicate the compulsory stuff if it wanted to). Perhaps you could have explanations of each term if you click on 'em? Also having "miscellaneous" as the third highest number is a little unsatisfying, can you break that down a bit more? But these are nitpicks, nice work!
- theli0nheart 16y agoThank you! I'll add in some tooltips for the items, because you're right, it's hard to know exactly what they entail. EDIT: Just added tooltips, I'm taking descriptions straight from Wikipedia (usually the first paragraph).
- digitallogic 16y ago"There are two types of government spending — discretionary and mandatory. Discretionary spending, which accounts for roughly one-third of all Federal spending, includes money for things like the Army, FBI, the Coast Guard, and highway projects. Congress explicitly determines how much to spend (or not spend) on these programs on an annual basis. Mandatory spending accounts for two-thirds of all government spending. This kind of spending is authorized by permanent laws. It includes "entitlements" like Social Security, Medicare, and Food Stamps — programs through which individuals receive benefits based on their age, income, or other criteria. Spending levels in these areas are dictated by the number of people who sign up for these benefits, rather than by Congress." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#Federal_Spending http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#Federal_Spe...
- _delirium 16y agoFrom the Wikipedia link the data's from it looks like "Healthcare" under discretionary spending means the budget of the Department of Health and Human Services. That includes a lot of healthcare research and public-health kinds of stuff, like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). Also includes some not-really-healthcare stuff, though, like the Office of Civil Rights, and the faith-based initiatives thing that Bush created. And some is more gray area, e.g. the FDA does drug approvals, which is clearly "healthcare", but it also inspects beef, which is good for health but not what people normally think of as healthcare.
- socratees 16y agoBug: Looks like the text field doesn't handle comma properly. Any character beyond the first occurrence of a comma gets truncated.
- bprater 16y agoThrew me for a minute, too. Suggesting that you regex this field to chop off anything that isn't a period.
- gamma_raj 16y agoBeautiful
- krsgoss 16y agoLooks beautiful, especially in such short time. I find the discretionary defense spending line item especially depressing compared to healthcare.
- markbnine 16y agoIt would be nice to compare the break-out to other countries. Perhaps you can finish this tonight?
- theli0nheart 16y agoI can definitely work on it!
- aardvark 16y agoIt looks great! One thing I'd like to see, if possible, is an adjustment to account for deficit spending. In other words, if the government is spending $175 for every $100 collected, adjust the expenses accordingly, so we could clearly see what kind of cuts it would take to balance the budget.
- Semiapies 16y agoMaybe as a bill instead of a receipt, complete with running unpaid balance scaled to tax paid?
- simon_ 16y agoI don't think this is right... FICA is capped, so my social security contribution should not scale linearly with income.
- theli0nheart 16y agoYou're right--the calculation I do is linear, so I will try and make this more accurate later tonight.
- Semiapies 16y agoThe contribution is capped, but spending isn't.
- coin 16y agoThe site appears to just linearly scale the results, which is not always correct. For example, Social Security is only collected on the first $106,800 of income.
- higher 16y agoAll social security revenue that is not paid out in benefits is replaced with unmarketable treasury securities and spent as part of the general fund. When social security ceases to run a nominal surplus, the money to pay for those securities will come out of the general fund. As you can see, social security is essentially part of the broader budget, and the divide between its budget and the broader budget is strictly imaginary. As such I think it is appropriate to calculate FICA spending exactly as the author has.
- higher 16y agoI see I have been rated down for posting the truth. If you would like to read about the truth, you can find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States) "Congress invested these surpluses into special series, non-marketable U.S. Treasury securities held by the Social Security Trust Fund. Under the law, the government bonds held by Social Security are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government." "According to most projections, the Social Security trust fund will begin drawing on its Treasury Notes toward the end of the next decade (around 2018 or 2019), at which time the repayment of these notes will have to be financed from the general fund."
- 2arrs2ells 16y agoNo, you've been rated down for a reply that does not actually address the comment the parent poster made. Your comment on Social Security accounting (which is correct, as far as I know), has no bearing on the parent's observation that FICA tax doesn't scale linearly - because it is capped at a certain point.
- 16y ago
- higher 16y agoThe federal government actually only has about 58-59 cents of revenue for each dollar it spends. It would be slightly more accurate (if extremely inflammatory) to make an applet that generates a receipt for only entitlement spending, as entitlement spending has come within 2% of revenue recently.
- xenophanes 16y agowtf are "Miscellaneous mandatory programs" that cost almost as much as social security?
- cbetz 16y agovia the google: http://useconomy.about.com/od/fiscalpolicy/p/Mandatory.htm http://useconomy.about.com/od/fiscalpolicy/p/Mandatory.htm "These programs include Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Child Nutrition and Tax Credits, Supplemental Security for the Disabled and Student Loans."
- theli0nheart 16y agoJust added this in the tooltips.
- astrodust 16y agoSomeone should throw some CSS3 rotation and drop-shadow on this thing.
- nihaar 16y agoThis is actually pretty good data to tie to a given IP address.
- Semiapies 16y agoDoes the Defense number include expenditures on Iraq and Afghanistan? Those have been tracked separately from normal Defense spending up to 2009: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Budgetary_treatment_of_Iraq_.26_Afghanistan_war_expenses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Bu...
- SMrF 16y agoCan you put little voting arrows next to the line items so I can vote up NASA and vote down defense spending? Oh wait, representative democracy. Damn.
- theli0nheart 16y agoIf only Congress had an API... POST /house-of-representatives/?district=4&action=expel POST /house-of-representatives/?district=4&action=elect&candidate=329183
- nowarninglabel 16y agoThere is actually an API available. I'm currently working with it to produce a longer lasting version of this same concept, though the concept is kind of not interesting now that like a dozen different people did this...
- andrewparker 16y agoHere is a usable API that's live for accessing government data: http://wiki.sunlightlabs.com/Sunlight_Labs_API http://wiki.sunlightlabs.com/Sunlight_Labs_API Doesn't support write quite like that yet ;)
- catshirt 16y agoi'd rather ?action be part of the method than the query string. in case they're reading.
- jderick 16y agoWould be interesting to see how people vote, even if it has no direct effect.
- theli0nheart 16y agoWorking on it...
- 16y ago
- jmreid 16y agoFound a similar site on Reddit: http://www.whatwepayfor.com http://www.whatwepayfor.com Found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/dlidt/you_want_a_receipt_myself_and_another_redditor/ http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/dlidt/you_want_a_r...
- DavidSJ 16y agoDoes this include employer Social Security and Medicare expenses too? If not, it should, since they come out of your paycheck just as much as employee taxes.
- jacoblyles 16y agoI need to remember this for the next time someone tells me my desire for lower tax rates means I must not desire roads, police, and fire fighters. It's remarkable how little of the tax burden of a modern state actually goes towards essential services. A modern country could probably be run with single-digit taxes. You would be missing things like a space program, science subsidies, farm subsidies, and socialized retirement insurance, but you could still pay for the rule of law and basic public goods. Also, does this include recent large one-time stimulus spending bills, or were those in the next fiscal year?
- anigbrowl 16y agohttp://www.korea-dpr.com/business.htm http://www.korea-dpr.com/business.htm
- karzeem 16y agoHa, these calculators have had a great past 24 hours. I made one today too: http://taxes.kareemshaya.com http://taxes.kareemshaya.com You did a very nice job with the receipt vibe.
- theli0nheart 16y agoThanks, yours looks pretty nice too!
- hardtke 16y agoThe problem here is that for every dollar the government currently collects, they spend two. This should be reflected.
- seanalltogether 16y agoThis assumes the only cash inflow for federal spending comes from income taxes. How many sources are funneled in to federal budget in reality? edit - here you go, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/budget-2010/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/budget...
- alain94040 16y agoAnother suggestion, if you love attention to detail... Rather than having #XXX-XXX as the receipt number, put the IP address in the format of a receipt, that would be a nice touch.
- zeynel1 16y agoVery nice. Is it a coincidence that; for various numbers I tried; "social security" and "defense" are always about the same amount?
- rossriley 16y agoOk, just a little fun but for reference here's a comparison of US to UK based on US taxes of $10,000 and UK taxes of about the same (£6,350.50) The comparison goes roughly like this, obviously the UK figures are less detailed so I've grouped some of the US expenditure where I think appropriate, correct me if you see any errors. ======================================= UK: Pensions £1,459.32 ($2,310.61) + Welfare £705.73 ($1,117.42) Total= $3,4328.03 US: Social Security: $1908.03 + Housing $133.78 Total = $2,041.81 ======================================= UK: Healthcare £1,453.33 ($2,301.13) Total = $2,301.13 US: Medicare $1274.89 + Medicaid $816.32 + Healthcare $221.62 Total = $2,312.83 ======================================= UK: Education £364.83 ($577.65) Total = $577.65 US: Education $131.50 Total = $131.50 ======================================= UK: Defence £532.29 ($842.80) Total = $1,117.42 US: Defense $1869.09 + Veterans Affairs $147.84 Total = $2,016.93 ======================================= UK: Protection £197.37 ($312.50) - nb. (Includes Police Services, Fire-Protection Services, Law Courts, Prisons,Public Order and Safety) Total = $312.50 US: Homeland Security $123.76 + Department of Justice $67.31 + Potential Disaster Allotment $30.73 Total = $221.80 ======================================= UK: Transport £161.48 ($255.67) Total = $255.67 US: Transportation $204.17 + Public Engineering $14.33 Total = $218.50 ======================================= UK: General Government £155.50 ($246.21) Total = $246.21 US: Department of State $145.26 + Department of Energy $74.05 + Department of Agriculture $73.21 + Treasury $37.45 Total = $329.97 ======================================= UK: Interest Paid £334.92 ($530.29) Total = $530.29 US: Interest on National Debt Total = $461.64 ======================================= UK: Other Government Spending £616.02 ($975.37) Total = $975.37 US: NASA $52.67 + Commerce $38.84 + Labor $37.45 + Natural Parks $33.79 + Environmental Protection Agency $29.57 + National Science Foundation $19.69 + National Infrastructure Bank $14.06 + Community Service $3.08 + Small Business $1.93 + Bureaucracy $1.54 + Everything Else $55.75 Total = $125.62 ======================================= Finally: Miscellaneous mandatory programs $1606.83 Wasn't sure what this included, maybe US readers can shed some light upon how this might relate to the above sections. Obviously the main mismatch is in the other government spending so maybe most of that belongs in there. Anyway not exactly like for like but may be an interesting excercise.
- easyfrag 16y agoWhat a potentially interesting feature: switching countries to see what the same tax amount (converted to local currency) buys in other countries
- nhebb 16y agoI have to pay for Small Business? I'm a small business, and I have to subsidize other small businesses? Moochers!
- dfranke 16y agoYou should change "total" to "subtotal", and have the full total include how much extra you'd have to pay in order offset the deficit. Then at the bottom, "balance outstanding": your share of the public debt.
- nanijoe 16y agoI'm not sure where you got the tax rates from, but you almost certainly computed New Jersey taxes wrong. I'm seeing a rate of around 4%, when in truth most people who make anything over $35k pay around 7-11%
- DTrejo 16y agoYou might consider using raphaeljs to do some graphing and visualization, in addition to the numbers. graphing: http://g.raphaeljs.com/ http://g.raphaeljs.com/ Make sure to check out the demos.
- sliverstorm 16y agoI would like to see NASA, Education, Natural Parks, and the National Science Foundation higher on that list.