$1.48 Trillion: Government Collects Record-High Taxes in First Half of FY 2016

Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $1.48 trillion for the first half of fiscal year 2016, but the federal government still ran a $461 billion deficit during that time, according to the latest monthly Treasury Department statement.

Treasury receipts include tax revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and other miscellaneous items.

In the first half of fiscal 2016, which included the months of October, November, December, January, February, and March, the amount of taxes collected by the federal government outpaced the first half of all previous fiscal years, even after adjusting for inflation. The 2016 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, 2015, and runs through Sept. 30, 2016.

The federal government collected $1,476,218,000,000 in the first half of fiscal year 2016. Most of the $1.48 trillion came from individual income taxes, which comprised almost half of that total, totaling $675 billion.

One year ago, the government collected $1.42 trillion in inflation-adjusted revenues in the first half of fiscal year 2015. The Treasury Department has been tracking these data on its website since 1998. In that fiscal year, the federal government collected $1.11 trillion in inflation-adjusted revenue in the first half of that fiscal year. This means that since 1998, tax revenues have increased 33 percent.

Although the federal government brought in a record of approximately $1.48 trillion in revenue in the first half of fiscal 2016, according to the Treasury, it also spent approximately $1.94 trillion, leaving a deficit of approximately $461 billion.

So we import $2.3 Trillion worth of stuff. If we slapped a 20% tariff on that, it would generate $460 Billion a year.

More importantly, it would put Americans back to work. 50% of our working age people don’t work.

In 2015 Payroll taxes were $865 Billion and Income taxes were $899 billion for a total of $1,764 billion. If you put 20% of our working age people back to work, raising it from 50% to 70%, that would a 40% increase in the number of people working (20%/50%=40%). So you could expect $705 billion (40%* $1,764 billion) increase in income tax receipts.

Now you’re funding medicare and social security, you’ve eliminated the deficit, and you can afford to cut taxes, boosting the economy even further.

On top of that, you just reduced your safety net payments when those people went back to work. They will spend their proceeds mostly into the American economy, further boosting incomes and tax receipts.

Trump is the only candidate who gets this. Cruz wants free trade and a 500% increase in H1b’s. Kasich wants free trade and open borders. Hillary, wants open borders. Bernie would restore the tariffs but he would also tax and spend us into oblivion.

If you start with 2000 as a baseline, our National Budget was $1.8T. If you adjust that by the annual rate of inflation, you would see our annual budget for 2015 should have been $2.48T. But our actual budget was $3.9T. That's a miss of over 50%. We spent half again as much as it should have cost us to maintain a 2000 standard of living and spending.

NOW, 2015 wasn't the only year we missed. In fact, we missed the adjusted for inflation budget number EVERY YEAR since 2000. If you add up the "misses", you find that we "missed" by a total of $12.16T dollars. In 2000, our total National Debt was $5.66T. In 2015, our total National Debt was $18.14T. Guess what? The difference is $12.48T dollars. Meaning that the increase in debt is totally the result of the misses in the inflation adjusted budget.

What this means is if the government were fiscally responsible in the least and managed the budget to the rate of inflation, we would be looking at $5.66T instead of $18.14T in debt.

Here's the trick. Each time, instead of passing a budget, they've passed a continuing resolution, which allows for a "cost of living" increase adjustment to the previous year's budget. This process began in 2009, when the budget reached a new high of $3.5T due to the Wall Street bailout. That means these continuing resolutions we've been passing were against the PEAK budget passed.

The facts are there. There's no real "Republicans" or "Democrats" anymore. There is a line of crooks in Washington DC that are working to steal our money and shuffle it off to their buddies. The only thing that changes is whose pocket the money is going in, but make no mistake, we are being robbed blind, and saddled with a crushing debt by a band of criminals.

To put it in perspective, a $3.9T budget is approximately $11,100 for every man woman and child in this country. Our government is spending $11,100 on every single one of us. Supposedly. For a family of 4, that's $44,000 per year. That's enough to maintain a household in a lot of places.

I'm finishing my taxes now. Should take another day. That is the insult to injury part. The time it takes to certify the taking for the takers.

My daughter sent me this:

Bernie Sanders 2014 income tax return.

Take a drink before reviewing. Don't even think about why AMT is missing. I'm curious if anyone can see all the things wrong with this return and the persona of Sanders.

In 2014 we paid multiple times the tax rate of this socialist conman. Our only write offs were state, local, and real estate taxes. They were disallowed under AMT.

I cannot explain the level of cold anger I feel.

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