5 ms·

How much do you pay in rent? The majority of that is going towards paying your landlord's taxes. Those are your second-order taxes. How much of that is left ov

by dheera 2y ago

How much do you pay in rent? The majority of that is going towards paying your landlord's taxes. Those are your second-order taxes. How much of that is left over for your landlord to spend? When they spend it, how much of that money is going towards paying yet other peoples' taxes? Those are your third order taxes. For every $1 you make, about 3 steps down the spending chain, only $0.2 is in the hands of the people and $0.8 is in the hands of the IRS. That's what I meant by an 80% taxation rate. If taxes were lower, all of your stuff including rent could be vastly cheaper.

aetch 2y ago
If taxes were lower all your stuff would cost more without the infrastructure to support it.
- dheera 2y ago
  Oh the bullshit they brainwashed you with. What infrastructure? Non-existent healthcare? Non-existent public transportation? Non-existent fiber to the home? Non-existent policing of crimes? Schools that look like jails? Homes built of shitty wood? Power outages, fires, disasters all the time? There are countries with far better infrastructure that have less taxes. The US loves spending tax dollars on a bunch of inefficiencies and meddling in the affairs of other countries I will never live in, with my money.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
hx8 2y ago
This feels true, but the name "third order taxes" does not clearly point to this phenomenon. I think of second order taxes as "my employer paid pay roll tax, so I get less money" or "this good was tariffed, so I payed more for it even though it was imported through a middle man and not directly paid by me." I will say that what you spend your money on has a huge impact of how much the IRS gets at the end of the day. For an extreme example, if you give the money to a 501c then it's not taxed, and there are several ways the 501c could spend the money that wouldn't be taxed....
- dheera 2y ago
  I'm swimming in taxes and treading water is hard enough already. Maybe if they taxed me less, I donate more to 501c's that do more per dollar than the government does.
  - hx8 2y ago
    That sucks. The individual income tax burden in the US is higher than developed countries. You really have to plan around it.

by dheera 2y ago

aetch 2y ago

If taxes were lower all your stuff would cost more without the infrastructure to support it.

dheera 2y ago
Oh the bullshit they brainwashed you with. What infrastructure? Non-existent healthcare? Non-existent public transportation? Non-existent fiber to the home? Non-existent policing of crimes? Schools that look like jails? Homes built of shitty wood? Power outages, fires, disasters all the time? There are countries with far better infrastructure that have less taxes. The US loves spending tax dollars on a bunch of inefficiencies and meddling in the affairs of other countries I will never live in, with my money.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

hx8 2y ago

This feels true, but the name "third order taxes" does not clearly point to this phenomenon. I think of second order taxes as "my employer paid pay roll tax, so I get less money" or "this good was tariffed, so I payed more for it even though it was imported through a middle man and not directly paid by me." I will say that what you spend your money on has a huge impact of how much the IRS gets at the end of the day. For an extreme example, if you give the money to a 501c then it's not taxed, and there are several ways the 501c could spend the money that wouldn't be taxed....

dheera 2y ago
I'm swimming in taxes and treading water is hard enough already. Maybe if they taxed me less, I donate more to 501c's that do more per dollar than the government does.
- hx8 2y ago
  That sucks. The individual income tax burden in the US is higher than developed countries. You really have to plan around it.