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You should exclude SS and Medicare when talking about income tax rates. Both of these are basically forced-savings, not taxes. You pay in (save) when working, y
by jbuzbee 12y ago
You should exclude SS and Medicare when talking about income tax rates. Both of these are basically forced-savings, not taxes. You pay in (save) when working, you get the money back when you retire in the form of SS payments and medicare coverage. Obviously that's a bit of simplification as todays payroll deductions directly fund today's retirees, but the general idea is correct. Unlike taxes, you will more-or-less get back what you put in when you retire. You can't lump income tax and these two force-savings together when talking about tax burden.
- rewqfdsa 12y agoNo, we should definitely include SS and Medicare. You're correct about retirement programs, but the reality is that people lump income taxes and these "forced savings" into "stuff taken out of my paycheck". When you claim the rich pay 84% of taxes, the implication is that their "stuff taken out of my paycheck" contribution is five times that of the average schmuck, and that's not the case.
- jbuzbee 12y agoIf people are confused about "stuff taken out of my paycheck", then the answer is education, not more muddying of the waters by mixing two completely different deductions.
- rewqfdsa 12y agoYou're never going to educate away the intuitive identification of payroll deductions proportional to income with the phrase "income taxation".
- jwellnitz 12y agoWhy does it matter when the tax payer gets something back? And do I get nothing back from the income taxes I pay today? If I pay income taxes today to buy a ship for the U.S. Navy, and that ship is used 10 years later to defend the port where I work, does that change how I view the income tax paid today? I'm pretty sure they're taxes either way.