8 ms·
Where did my taxes go?
- greesil 6mo agoInsurance company with an army primarily. But now with an expensive credit card bill.
- NDlurker 6mo agoHow many people are murdered per dollar spent on "defense"?
- throwaway27448 6mo agoUnfortunately I could easily see this being twisted into a mandate to murder more
- kamikazeturtles 6mo agoA lot less than those born from the economic prosperity brought from open and protected sea lanes
- trollbridge 6mo agoIn 2025, approximately $850 million per person who died.
- patrickthebold 6mo agoSomewhat off topic, but I've always wanted to know _who_ gets my tax dollars more than what they were spent on. For example, a middle class salary to someone building bombs in Ohio is different than a wealthy investor who owns shares in some educational company that provides standardized tests to local public schools.
- alexb_ 6mo agohttps://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/agency https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/agency Click down into a federal account and then change the drop down over the chart to "Recipient".
- GiorgioG 6mo agoInterest on the national debt is by far the largest share. Both political parties spend like drunken sailors.
- cucumber3732842 6mo agoDrunken sailors don't spent more than they earn, for the most part.
- Alupis 6mo agoYou have clearly never met fresh-out-of-basic or back-from-deployment sailors, then. They build used car dealerships and strip clubs within walking distance of bases. Sailors blow thousands in an evening at the club, and then drive home in $75k vehicles purchased at predatory interest rates. Despite significant, potentially life-changing enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses, housing stipends and more - many (or most) enlistees leave the service in debt or near penniless.
- cucumber3732842 6mo agoYou're exaggerating or very out of date. They train people specifically against both those now. The official slides stop just short of "no the stripper does not actually like you" but you'd have a hard time making it that far without having that beat into your skull. The number who don't listen is dwindling. The interest rates those guys are getting on vehicles they don't need are no worse than anyone else off the street's would be these days.
- cindyllm 6mo ago[dead]
- wat10000 6mo agoIt's way too high, but it's not by far the largest. It's barely higher than national defense and not that much higher than Medicaid/health. And it's only the highest because of the artificial split between income taxes and payroll taxes, where this page only considers income taxes. If you look at all federal spending, Social Security is the largest, then Medicare, then interest comes in at #3.
- kamikazeturtles 6mo agoI look forward to a website that tells me who to vote for based on my occupation, socioeconomic status, and who will be the most benefit to me That will be the true death knell of democracy
- patrickmay 6mo ago“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- khernandezrt 6mo agoIf the US had a credit score, I wonder what it would be?
- bjourne 6mo agoAA+
- arjie 6mo agoThey're rated AA+/AA- depending on whom. The downgrades to the US's credit rating were big news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_credit-rating_downgrades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...
- koolba 6mo agoAnd also completely meaningless as a credit rating in the context of creditworthiness specifically means the ability to repay. And they can always print dollar bills to do so. Now whether that $1 in 20 years will buy anything is an entirely different story.
- kube-system 6mo agoIt does. Standard & Poor's: AA+ Moody's: Aa1
- KumaBear 6mo agoWell never missed a payment in its lifetime might make it pretty high even with high debt income ratio
- WD-42 6mo agoThis exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_credit_rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_credit_ra... USA is #18, below Taiwan and Above Qatar. Australia is #1.
- trollbridge 6mo agoAustralia's credit rating is something of a matter of national pride.
- JohnMakin 6mo agoI’ve always known the breakdown in my head, but seeing the raw numbers by category was pretty eye opening - particularly how much I’m contributing per month to support something like say, aggressive wars in the middle east that are driving up my gas prices.
- arjie 6mo agoThis makes it sort of obvious how large the US welfare state is. Medicaid: 10% "Safety Net": 7.1% Social Security: 22.6% Medicare: 14.2% 53.9% of the federal budget is spent on welfare. That seems roughly in line with most Western nations.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- airstrike 6mo agoIn line on price, but not on value. If anything this speaks to the cost of welfare in America. The corollary is that many suggestions to reduce welfare spending would lead to even less actual welfare being delivered, without addressing systemic cost problems.
- phillipcarter 6mo agoUnfortunately, much of that gets dispersed into an unfathomably complex web of private and profit-seeking interests, with much less actually going to individual beneficiaries.
- trollbridge 6mo agoSocial Security almost entirely flows to beneficiaries, as do programs like SNAP, where overhead is around 6-7% (admittedly, fraud might be a good bit higher than that); likewise Medicare is one of the most efficient systems at getting money directly to medical providers (although fraud might be a problem there too, estimates range from 10%-25%).
- munk-a 6mo agoYup, Medicaid and SNAP are extremely efficient. Social Security is almost completely disbursement charges but those disbursements aren't means tested so even quite wealthy individuals receive them. Additionally you mentioned that Medicare gets money to medical providers but I suspect that was meant to mean medical insurance providers - rather than health care providers (like doctors) since the system is partially direct payments but mostly runs through intermediary privatized companies and, of extreme note here, is that Medicare is famously barred from cost negotiations so while our Canadian healthcare system can talk to a pharma manufacturer and tell them "The price for this drug is unreasonable, we won't cover it unless it's cost competitive to biosimilars" Medicare just needs to roll over and accept whatever made up numbers it's given. The benefits that are intended to go exclusively to the impoverished though, those are extremely means-tested and often have work requirements or other hoops to jump through.
- alexb_ 6mo agohttps://www.usaspending.gov/ https://www.usaspending.gov/ is another great website for this stuff. I suggest using the Budget explorer. Here's the map by function (e.g. national defense, healthcare): https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function
- johnmlussier 6mo agoDebt. Defense. Dole.
- lastofthemojito 6mo agoAs a thought experiment, it'd be interesting to imagine how things would play out if each taxpayer could adjust little sliders on each category to allocate where they personally would like their taxes to go. Agencies could recommend funding levels, Congress could recommend an allocation and if a taxpayer didn't change it, that default would take effect. But if a taxpayer preferred, they could say, "no, I won't be funding DOD this year". Or space nerds might say "I'm sending 100% of my tax dollars to NASA!" Of course no one would likely choose to do boring stuff like paying interest on debt. So we'd probably end up with incredibly well-funded national parks and cool space missions, and also a crippling recession due to defaulting on the national debt.
- mitthrowaway2 6mo agoIf the sliders applied only to discretionary spending, it might work.
- silentsea90 6mo ago"crippling recession due to defaulting" - we will just borrow more as usual. Not like our taxes are enough to fund the nation in any year (war or no war).
- babypuncher 6mo agoEventually the lenders will stop lending. That's what leads to the defaulting scenario in the first place.
- guzfip 6mo agoWhy will they stop lending? The US government could ably wipe them and their entire family and replace it with a more cooperative lender. There’s no higher authority to enforce anything.
- einpoklum 6mo agoI would guess that's a poor thought experiment, because most of us - myself included - don't have a good grasp of what various things cost to make work. And then when you look at the relative points on the sliders you think "Oh, but X is much more critical than Y, surely I can't spend so little on it relative to my spending on Y". Not to mention the complex semantics and effects of debt in sovereign finance, and actions like increasing or decreasing the money supply etc.
- waynecochran 6mo agoI would be more likely to share this w others if the domain name didn't have an f-bomb in it. It doesn't bother me that much, but I really don't want to share it in certain circles...
- kacy 6mo agoHey Wayne, I bought wheretheheckdidmytaxesgo.com and will make it live after work today. Sorry about the profanity! It’s just how I felt after seeing the stats firsthand :)
- bko 6mo agoThis is great. I'd also recommend Covid money tracker. US printed nearly $12 trillion in response to Covid, something like 25% increase in money supply. And it is my contention that this has driven inflation (both asset - think meme stocks, rise in crypto etc - as well general levels that started to appear by 2022) https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/ https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/
- phillipcarter 6mo agoIt has, as has similar efforts worldwide which also saw similar or worse levels of inflation. We were dealt a shit hand and the thinking was it's less pain overall compared to the alternative. That said, the amount of fraud that was perpetuated here without any follow-through on enforcement is ... extremely not good.
- jimbokun 6mo agoI think lack of enforcement was a deliberate decision to get the money out faster. If each claim was investigated closely before paying out, it may have resulted in higher unemployment and lower economic output.
- OkayPhysicist 6mo agoMost of the fraud was the business loans, that they then forgave. That structure innately gave them the opportunity to take their time investigating them, after the benefit was already produced. They just chose not to.
- johnmlussier 6mo agoWelfare, defense, interest on debt. That’s it.
- cultofmetatron 6mo agoIf only I could elect to send 4000 to NASA and not to enable israel's genocide in the middle east. edit: bring on the downvotes, israel is committng a genocide and doing it with out tax dollars.
- throwanem 6mo agoI can understand why zero isn't a valid entry, but it should be. That is an entirely plausible result for a federal income tax calculation.
- slg 6mo agoI can’t help wondering about the categorization. For example, we spend more on “agricultural subsidies” than “NASA & space” or “EPA & environment”, but for some reason the former gets hidden under the “all other” category while the latter two get their own distinct categories. The author might not have a political motivation for those choices, but it’s the kind of choice that will likely influence the political conclusions the reader will make from the data.
- tuan 6mo agoSince we renamed DOD to DOW, should the Defense budget be renamed too?
- ForHackernews 6mo agoIn the UK, HMRC provides this breakdown itself to every taxpayer in their online portal.
- janalsncm 6mo agoShouldn’t the “defense” line item be called “war” now since the department has been renamed? It’s more accurate anyways.
- OkayPhysicist 6mo agoThe DoD was named such by the act of Congress that established it. The President does not have the authority to rename it, no matter how much he pouts about it.
- janalsncm 6mo agoTouché on the actual renaming, but I kind of prefer “war” anyways. It’s a refreshing removal of euphemisms, of which I believe we have way too many. If you are on a plane and they announce they are collecting “service items” people might be confused and hand over their “service weapon” if they forget that one means trash and the other means gun. Good thing we have the TSA to prevent this kind of misunderstanding.
- pclowes 6mo agoMore and more I find my politics drifting towards whoever will balance the budget and pay down the deficit. Since that party doesn’t exist I am politically homeless.
- kacy 6mo agofun fact I discovered in this process: if the US just went back to 2019 spending (with 2025 tax revenue), there would be a $780B surplus.
- kbelder 6mo agoJust fixing federal budget growth to a figure slightly less than GDP growth would do the trick eventually. But we just can't bring ourselves to do it. "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
- pclowes 6mo agoI did not know this, really puts a perspective on it, thanks
- slg 6mo ago[flagged]
- 9x39 6mo agoWhy would anyone listen to the tax crop? Farmers don't listen to the cows.
- ChrisArchitect 6mo agoRelated: Tax Wrapped 2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47755604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47755604
- kulikalov 6mo agoI love how easy this kind of mini data visualization projects have become
- ryandvm 6mo agoI feel like legislation that resulted in every taxpayer getting an itemized receipt like this would be hugely popular and a massive PR win for the representatives that sponsored it. I can only conclude that the reason it hasn't been done is because they don't actually want you to know.
- Apreche 6mo agoI really wish we would get away from this line of thinking. For state and local governments, yes, your taxes are put into accounts and are then spent according to the budget. For the federal government, no. Money that is paid in taxes is effectively eliminated. The total number of dollars that exist in circulation is reduced. When the federal government spends money, it is creating all new money. It can’t run out. It’s not your tax money that is being spent.
- reese_john 6mo agoThe treasury has an account at the FED called TGA[0] which is funded by tax payments and proceeds from new Treasuries issuance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_General_Account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_General_Account > The total number of dollars that exist in circulation is reduced. Not accurate. Dollars are a liabilities on the books of the Federal Reserve. Tax payments to the federal government only cause a liability shift from commercial banks’ reserves at the FED to the TGA, it doesn’t really change the net amount of dollars in circulation. The most you could argue is that it momentarily reduces the net commercial banks’ liabilities (which economists call M*) until the Treasury distributes those dollars again to the broad economy
- d_burfoot 6mo agoMany Americans do not realize how much money the US government spends. When you include all three levels, it comes to $32K/person/year [0]. This is much higher than countries that are considered "social democracies" such as Finland, France and Canada. If you look at wealthy blue cities like NYC or SF, the spending is on the order of $50K/p/y, comparable to Norway. It is not realistic to believe that we can become a nice wholesome European country if we just raise taxes a bit. The extra money will just be squandered and stolen. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
- xeromal 6mo agoIs the amount proportional to the per capita income of the respective countries?
- icegreentea2 6mo agoIf you do tax revenue as % of GDP, you get the US falling at about 25%, with the OECD average sitting around 35%.
- fortran77 6mo ago> When you include all three levels, it comes to $32K/person/year Which is why these calculators should tell people who pay less than $32K that they are getting supported by the 5% who pay most of the taxes...
- bdangubic 6mo agowe should also break it down by state and determine distribution of electoral college votes based on it
- georgemcbay 6mo ago> they are getting supported by the 5% who pay most of the taxes The same 5% who in many cases run massively profitable companies that pay their workers on the bottom so much less than a living wage that they are forced into tax-funded social safety net programs like SNAP to survive. That 5% can cry me a river about their tax burden.
- thatmf 6mo agoThe unbundling of "Veterans Benefits" from "National Defense" is such an American thing, as though the former would exist without the latter.
- throwanem 6mo ago"As though the latter...without the former."
- jmyeet 6mo agoNow consider that the Defense budget is ~$1 trillion and the Department of Defense has never passed an audit [1] and the administration is seeking $1.5 trillion next year [2]. [1]: https://www.taxpayer.net/budget-appropriations-tax/why-cant-the-pentagon-pass-an-audit/ https://www.taxpayer.net/budget-appropriations-tax/why-cant-... [2]: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/03/nx-s1-5772701/trump-budget-defense-spending https://www.npr.org/2026/04/03/nx-s1-5772701/trump-budget-de...
- dang 6mo agoOn HN we don't much care about profanity per se, so there's no need to bowdlerize a la "the fuck" -> "the heck". In this case, though, the best option is probably just to take out the expletive.
- uticus 6mo agoLove it - great application of publicly-available data. Also ref https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47420307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47420307 US govt provided public debt resources. By the way, the 1040 instructions have a pie chart like this (ref https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf, page 122). Not that most people do taxes themselves, or have a reason to read to page 122 of instructions for a single form. But still it's there and perhaps a nice gesture by the IRS. Breaking it out into pie charts etc like this can be really helpful. In my view the real kicker with taxes is the opaqueness. Kinda like a meal card versus paying for every meal, or like using a credit card versus paying with cash, it's hard for humans to really grasp what's going on unless they're involved. Of course it would be impractical to pay taxes separately to every waiting hand in government bureaucracy. But on the other hand maybe the number one goal shouldn't be ease of use, either. Maybe a little friction when paying for public services could be a good thing for citizens who are interested in a healthy country - my opinion.
- d3rockk 6mo agoVery painful to see Corporate income taxes @ 8%, vs. Personal income taxes @ 36%. on the income pie chart^ However, not at all surprised. That stat would arguably make the most material difference to voters, if only they knew about it. Edit: Adds another degree of pain when you consider that the CEO-to-worker pay ratio reached 281-to-1 in 2024.
- akramachamarei 6mo agoWhy should it be painful that all personal federal incomes taxes produce 4x the income as the federal taxes on all corporations?
- d3rockk 5mo agoBecause U.S. corporations were taxed on a total of gross receipts of roughly $40T, while personal income was taxed on a much tighter pool of roughly $23.9T.
- uticus 6mo ago> Interest per Second - General - The U.S. pays $31,688/second in debt interest — $1,901,285 every minute. Your share of that: $3893.33 [plugged in "normal" amount], gone before it bought anything. ...I thought I was already sufficiently terrified by the debt numbers...
- BurningFrog 6mo agoEasy to remember fact: The federal government spends $20B per day. $5B of that is borrowed.
- Dig1t 6mo ago>Key laws that shaped FY2025 spending >P.L. 118-50 >Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act -$4.0B to replenish Iron Dome and David's Sling interceptors —$1.2B for Iron Beam laser defense system development —$3.5B in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Israel —$4.4B to replenish U.S. defense articles transferred to Israel —$2.4B for USCENTCOM operations in the region —Funded as a supplemental outside normal appropriations Most Americans have no idea how much money we give to this tiny nation on the other side of the world.
- acheron 6mo agoYou’d better look out, because I’m gonna say “fuck”. https://genius.com/Ben-folds-rockin-the-suburbs-lyrics https://genius.com/Ben-folds-rockin-the-suburbs-lyrics
- kylehotchkiss 6mo agoI would like a refund on my subsidies for farmers and salary payments to congressional staff, please.
- Bender 6mo agoWhere did my taxes go? Unpopular answer but ask your favorite AI to show the history of how taxes increased in the USA since 1913 and what those taxes were spent on. Then ask how often such programs are ever removed and the taxes are reduced and surplus given back to the people. Related recent discussion of taxes in California [1] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inOci0iH4Q8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inOci0iH4Q8 [video][15 mins]
- mahirsaid 6mo agonice visual. Would be nice to vote on what money gets spent on what.
- proshno 6mo ago[dead]
- insane_dreamer 6mo agoGet rid of the national debt. Cut the military budget by 50%. I wish I could cut my taxes in half and refuse to have them go to the military budget or servicing the debt. I'm happy for my taxes to go to all the rest (which could be increased).
- insane_dreamer 6mo agoIt's important to separate SS/Medicare from the rest of budget for these discussions, because those are non-discretionary, which means that the government can't re-allocate that money elsewhere or spend it on something else. Those are also categories where each taxpayer directly and personally benefits, and in the case of SS in proportion (roughly) to what you put in (unless it breaks/goes broke, that's a different conversation). That is completely different than the actual Federal Budget, which is determined by WH+Congress, from which you and I do not directly benefit (unless you're a shareholder of Lockheed Martin or Raytheon, or you're Don Jr. or Kushner), and which they can determine spending on. And when it comes to that discretionary Budget, roughly 1/3 goes to the Military and 1/3 goes to Debt Servicing. And the primary reason we have so much debt is because of the military spending, since that's our biggest expense and because the government can't borrow to fund SS and Medicare. So basically, we taxpayers are funding a military state and subsidizing the defense industry (while being told that subsidizing any other industry is "un-American".
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]