Posted on 05/03/2005 12:39:32 PM PDT by Reaganghost
A Million Bucks; and
What Do I Have to Show For It?
I have meticulously tracked my finances in Quicken ever since I got my first computer in 1995. A few days ago, I shared my recent telephone bill experience with the members of FreeRepublic. This article provides a more in depth review of taxes circa the United States, 1995- 2004.
The table below summarizes my experience, but a few explanations are helpful. As a retiree for the entire period, I have not had any debt for more than twenty years, so debt service is not part of this experience. I track all of our spending as taxes, consumption or investment. Years in which our consumption deviates significantly from the mean usually reflect the years in which we purchased cars. My average property taxes run in the neighborhood of 15-20000 per year. On the advice of our CPA, I lumped the property tax payments into a single year so that one year I can itemize and the next year I take the standard deduction. Our 2002 taxes reflect an extraordinary capital gain that was to be married to an extraordinary capital loss, but it turned out that I did not qualify to take the loss at that time. Here is the table:
| Year | Consumption | Taxes |
| 1995 | 28696 | 34938 |
| 1996 | 32261 | 44082 |
| 1997 | 31010 | 25686 |
| 1998 | 27987 | 47914 |
| 1999 | 39002 | 23521 |
| 2000 | 26437 | 47550 |
| 2001 | 24514 | 24156 |
| 2002 | 45737 | 81352 |
| 2003 | 21423 | 35297 |
| 2004 | 24773 | 58475 |
| Totals | 301839 | 422971 |
| Average | 30184 | 42297 |
All of the data is rounded to the nearest dollar. The totals for the chart do not total the million bucks that was advertised, but trust me, the totals in my quicken report for consumption versus taxes totals more than a million. I limited the chart data to the past ten years to make the math simple and the relative percentages do not differ materially.
Over the past ten years, governments have taxed me 140% of my average annual consumption. Precisely who are the beneficiaries of the fruits of my productivity, my family or the politicians that use the tax dollars to buy the votes of voters who live at the expense of others? I admit to being rich when measured by commonly used parameters. If you think this is just my problem, here is a terrifying graphic that reflects the experience of all Americans:
Click here to do something about it. Read more about the Reagan Renaissance to find out how you can play an instrumental role in restoring our Constitutional freedoms. President Reagan said, "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness." Socialism sent the Soviet Union to the Ash-heap of History where it belongs. The Reagan Renaissance can prevent the United States from suffering the same fate. The collapse of Rome plunged the world into the Dark Ages. Do you remember the old adage about "nothing new under the sun since the Greeks?" Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." The same factors that led to the downfall of Rome are the same ones that led to the fall of the Soviet Union and are now threatening the United States. How about it Freepers, can the "Information Age" prevent us from repeating the mistakes of the past?
I don't blame people for the "sump'n fer nut'n" attitude. The environment we live in makes it easy to forget what we get. If I fly cross country, I never see the air traffic controllers making sure I'm safe. When I buy a burger I don't see the guys inspecting meat. A lot of the stuff the gov't does is invisible to us. We don't think about it, but we assume the intended results.
Thanks for the ping. I sent Rush an attachment for our last thread. Hope this shakes things up.
Taxation with this type of representation is NOT FREEDOM.
Not many years ago I was paying $20,000 in property taxes on just two houses in New Jersey. Moved to Pennsylvania, nice 4-br house, taxes under $400 a year.
I could laugh myself to sleep every night.
Seriously, have you ever considered retiring overseas?
Try Rush's brother too. I saw a Freeper creation a few years ago make it Rush via his brother.
Durasell is a government employee. He/she is a triple agent. We call him/her 007 trillion. He/she is faster than a tax increase, is able to leap deep tax cuts in a single bound, has no fear of a congressional investigation and can bust any budget with the stroke of a pen.
FYI Ping!
Good night nurse!!!
I'll not complain about my piddly $3900 then!
Oh. If you want off the ping list, FReepmail me. I don't mind removing undesirables. :) HA!
lol
You have a point. Maybe *the* point, but it's difficult to prove a negative - Civilization isn't the norm but how many people really know that, this is why our level of "poverty" as officially described is at some level almost comical relative to certain locales. Obesity, 2 cars and a roof over your head w/ Nintendo, stereo, radio and microwave, gas oven ,washer and dryer, cell phone or land line, internet access, etc., You kiddin' me?
Politicians have done well with emphasising self-ownership and entrepeneurial incentives. If you choke out the small business owner, any country is hurting. When I was in the army not that long ago living conditions were a step *up* for a few citizens. "Oh, Sarge treats us just fine, lets us sleep in till 5 o'clock".
:)
Guessing at state, and local (given the total tax dollars) tax rates, and knowing the federal tax structure, one could compute your gross income over those years. (Without knowing all of the deductions) (Within a few thousand dollars)
OK, call me paranoid.
;^)
5.56mm
Thanks for the ping! I'd ping the list but I'm on remote this week.
There seems to be a lot of support for the Value added tax, which might have some merit. The only thing I'd be leery of is the possible end to the cash system as a way of monitoring compliance. That would be even worse than we have now as there would be an ability by government to record and control every transaction that's made.
Answer: No.
There are legitimate functions for government. Socialism constitutes 60% of government spending leaving 40% for those functions that are defensibly legitimate. Our armed forces are superb. You are naive if you believe most of the other functions you list are of excellent quality and intellectually challenged if you don't realize that many of the things that function acceptably are in spite of government meddling. I would add that it is questionable whether government has any defensible role with regard to the economy.
I bitch and moan as much as the next guy about inefficiency of some public agencies, but:
A)At least we have those agencies and the knowledge that they'll do their jobs most of the time.
B)I know that nobody is going to come to get me in the middle of the night because I wrote an angry letter to my local paper about cracked sidewalks and a stop sign obscured by foliage.
I'm expecting that book of yours to be in my mailbox any day now.
The property taxes are on income producing rental properties; the balance are capital gains and a fully taxable retirement annuity.
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