The problem with so many people not paying federal taxes is that they don’ see big government as a threat, because they are getting all those services for free. HUD loans, FHA, federal money for schools, school lunches, local police equipment, 87 different job programs......are all fine because they don’t see the bill.
Obviously whomever is conducting the audit isn’t accurately accounting all taxation.
States such as NY and CA typically have about a 50cent/gallon set of taxes on gasoline.
So for every mile traveled, that’s about 2-5cents per mile taxed for vehicle travel.
That tax hits every hard commodity sold in those states just for delivery charges.
Now add the 8.5 percent sales tax and the lowest income workers are nearly always paying a minimum of 10% tax just to survive with any income.
The larger curse are the number of regulatory requirements for all aspects of commerce, which drive unnecessary costs when not required except by regulatory fiat.
As a rule of thumb we pay roughly 10x the raw cost for any product and service.
That is why the economy is failing.
The rest of society has just been corrupted by those metrics as business as usual. Any efficiencies gleaned are simply regulated and taxed again, not only removing profits, but reducing incentive to even work.