Posted on 04/20/2017 1:24:41 PM PDT by davikkm
As we turn the page on yet another inspiring tax day, let’s look into who is really bearing the burden of the individual taxes in the United States.
In 2014’s tax year, the federal government took in a then-record $1.377 trillion in income taxes from individuals, according to a report published by the Internal Revenue Service.
And of the 148,606,578 individual tax returns filed that year, 52,062,499 of them (35 percent) filed “nontaxable returns,” which means they paid no net individual income taxes. The rest of us, the 65 percent who did pay income taxes, paid an average of $14,271, according to the same IRS report.
In addition, 36.5 percent of all filers filed returns with incomes of over $50,000 in 2014. These taxpayers paid a total of more than $1.3 trillion in income taxes, or 94.4 percent of all income tax paid that year.
While many Americans on the right and left would call this a justified “progressive” tax system, my libertarian brothers and sisters would label it outright theft. As the government grows larger and larger, more and more taxes are required from the citizenry to bankroll the growth of countless federal programs and initiatives. All the while, politicians and former politicians in and around Washington D.C. profit mightily from “public service.”
(Excerpt) Read more at investmentwatchblog.com ...
The rest:
Amazingly, many Americans don’t owe a dime to the government. More than four in ten Americans, around 76 million people, did not pay any income tax to the federal government in 2015, according to data for 2016 from the Tax Policy Center. In other words, 44 percent of Americans enjoy the receiving the “benefits” from the government, while the rest are forced to cough up what they can to Uncle Sam or else it’s theirs.
That number of non-tax-paying Americans is expected to be about the same this year.
So, when Mitt Romney stated during the 2012 campaign against Barack Hussein Obama that about half of Americans don’t pay any income tax (and he caught a lot of flak for that), he was absolutely right!
Is it fair that those who make over $250,000 a year pay over half (51.6 percent) of all individual income taxes? Does it make sense for these same “one-percenters” to have an average tax rate of almost 26 percent? And if you don’t think that’s high enough, then how high should it be? 40 percent? 50 percent?
What about people with incomes of less than $50,000? These on the lower rung of the income ladder accounted for 62 percent of all tax returns filed in 2014, yet they paid just 5.7 percent of total income taxes collected with an average tax rate of 4.3 percent.
My friends on the left would say that this is a fair and progressive tax system that forces the rich to “pay their fair share,” despite the fact that a majority of poorer residents are receiving the federal benefits that much of the upper class is paying for. Still, the top 0.1 percent in America is forced to pay the equivalent of 39.2 percent of taxes while the bottom 20 percent actually have negative tax rates.
Unfortunately, the way we do taxes will not change and things will not get any easier.
It’s pretty simple in Sweden. Despite being a socialist utopia with a far smaller population than the U.S., the Nordic nation lessens the headache for its taxpayers. Sweden’s government fills out the tax forms for its citizens, with some even receiving a text message to which the recipient can respond, ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ to complete their taxes.
In the U.S., we want things simplified, but the entrenched and powerful tax preparation class, including accountants from coast to coast and now the likes of Turbo Tax and H&R Block, will do everything they can to keep the status quo in place. Complexity and confusion force Americans to use others to prepare their taxes for then.
Taxes should be able to be filled out on an index card. Let’s get President Trump and Republicans to actually do something on taxes soon before they get obsessed and distracted over the next election.
We’ve got about six months. Max.
Karl Marx HATED the middle class.
One of his ideas to get rid of them: an income tax as high as he could get it.
But you middle class Marxists keep voting for Bernie Sanders and his income tax hike. :)
I’d feel much better with a sales tax only system. I would have no exceptions. If you buy you pay 6%....individual, corporation, private organization. My only exception would be the curch offering plate and that’s because it’s protected by the first amendment.
The donation is not taxed but the expending of it would be.
I would charge tax when they buy items just like anyone else.
I find the complexity particularly annoying. When I was single and only had income, cap gains and dividends I could do it myself. Now I need to buy a piece of crappy software so it doesn’t suck up a whole week worth of time. I still to my own S corp taxes though as the business model is simple.
Unlike rocket science or nuclear physics, taxes are hard because a group of aholes made them hard.
They do this to reward their friends, punish their foes, and keep the rest of us beholden to the IRS.
And of course private sales of items that you already owned. Ie you seling your personal, used items. No taxes on this. Otherwise we all become tax agents and dont realy have the power to own anything.
I hadn’t considered sales of personal items. I’ll think about it. Thanks for the heads up.
No one charges sales taxes on the private sale of used items between people now. If they are a official resale business, then they are a business and its not a private sale.
Makes sense what you are saying. How do you avoid abuse of it by individuals or businesses?
If Kroger sells a used cash register to an independent grocer is that a private sale of personal equipment?
Well, kroger is a business selling a piece of business equipment, an asset. Its business.
Private sales by individuals of personal property. That is the distinction.
The income tax is an an abomination because it effectively is a form of indentured servitude. The government by dint of law seizes the entirety of what you earn or produce until it is sated, then you get to keep the rest.
A graduated sales tax is inherently fairer because only rich people buy luxury items so they will shoulder more of the burden. There’s not much point being rich if you don’t buy expensive stuff, and so only the rich would be taxed at the luxury rate.
Taxing income leaves taxpayers no suitable means of lessening their tax burden during lean years. The only way to reduce what you owe is also to reduce your earnings, which solves nothing. If taxes were consumption based you could reduce your tax burden simply by reducing your consumption.
If you conduct barter as business it’s already taxable so “private sales” worries is a red herring.
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