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That's unusual, majority of people in the UK have simple taxes and don't need to fill in any forms. The US is deliberatly difficult because 1) Companies make
by iso1631 5y ago
That's unusual, majority of people in the UK have simple taxes and don't need to fill in any forms.
The US is deliberatly difficult because
1) Companies make a fortune selling "solutions" to this, thus spend a lot of money ensuring it continues
2) Americans don't like taxes, so by making it more obvious the government is taking your tax money, and making it painful in the process, to fund their military, it helps cement that idea there's should be a small state
The US takes 27% of the GDP in tax, the UK 33%, although personal taxes for normal people tend to be about the same, its just that the US pretty much requires an accountant, or at least some expensive proprietary software, and hours of your time.
- mjevans 5y agoFor that 33% (+6%) you also get universal healthcare (which isn't accounted for in the 27% Americans are paying), so those numbers aren't apples to apples. That would be another thing that would be great for the GAO (U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)) to produce reports about. Where are (my / your) Tax dollars going? How does that compare to other countries, in absolute, per person, GDP and other metrics, etc?
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y agoAmericans chose great army instead of healthcare.
- iso1631 5y agoThe US government still spends more on healthcare as a total amount per person (about $1.4T, or $3,880 per person, just for medicare+medicaid), compared with the UK (about $3,300 per person) The US as a whole in 2019 spent 16% of its GDP on Health, 4% on Military The UK meanwhile spent 10% on Health and 3% on Military
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y agoHave you been to a doctors office in the US? There are more administrators filling out insurance papers than doctors. US spends money on healthcare administration, not on healthcare. The same dollar in the US buys ten times less insulin than a dollar in Canada.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoThey even chose "socialized medicine for the Army" to further drive the point home.
- splintercell 5y agoSoon you will learn what happens when Americans don’t choose a great army.
- iso1631 5y agoWell this "great army" doesn't seem to have stopped Putin invading Ukraine Caused a few wars though
- splintercell 5y agoI suggest listening to Peter Zeihan. Americans have stopped caring about the world order, this is the consequence of that.
- weberer 5y agoThe United States spends more money per capita in healthcare than any country in the world, and 2-3x as much as most European welfare states. There are a lot of problems with the system, but "not enough money funneling into it" is not one of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
- weberer 5y ago>Where are (my / your) Tax dollars going? They do report that. https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spending/categories/ https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spend...
- mjevans 5y agoI hadn't heart of them before: https://datalab.usaspending.gov/about/ https://datalab.usaspending.gov/about/ ""Who We Are This site was created by the Office of the Chief Data Officer at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service), which is part of the Department of the Treasury. Fiscal Service is responsible for managing public debt, central payment systems, and government accounting. Our team is comprised of data analysts, developers, and UX designers who are passionate about putting trusted data in the hands of the people."" So that site is created by the disbursement arm of the bureaucracy, which explains the overly generic output bins as well as no metric for adjusting based on taxes paid in by an individual, nor for area of the country. I was rather hoping for something with an order of magnitude or two of greater depth that dynamically adjusted the context of graphical representation based on what mattered to the viewer.
- csomar 5y ago> For that 33% (+6%) you also get universal healthcare I don't think taxes goes to healthcare (either in France or the UK). I think that's paid up for with your social security contribution?
- iso1631 5y agoIt's all taxes, and it all goes to the same pot, there's no hypothecation, the NHS budget is not related to the money brought in from NI contributions, and National Insurance is included in the tax revenue along with VAT, Fuel Duty, CGT, Stamp Duty, Income Tax, etc NI is about 19% of tax revenue, Income Tax 27%, VAT 18%, local taxes (council tax and business rates) about 10%. It doesn't include other receipts, things like profits from state owned business. Total government revenue (about 10% higher than total taxation) does not cover total government expenditure, hence a deficit, and some branches of economics considers revenue and expenditure separate in a system which controls its own currency. Either way, the US spends more on government healthcare (per head of total population) then the UK, the decision not to have universal healthcare isn't a funding one
- csomar 5y agoI stand to be corrected. But deficit should also be included (it's to be paid by future generations or being paid by currency debasement).
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThe process is pretty easy if you're on W2 and can't beat the standard deduction. No software is required to fill out the form.