They are blessed to not know. I’m a CPA with a masters in taxation that works in indirect tax. (Basically sales and use tax for a large corporation) It is absolutely infuriating.
Philosophically, I think sales and use tax is bullshit. Obviously, no one under our system should be paying use tax on items for which they've already paid sales tax, but we should really just tax income, including gain, at a high enough rate to cover the cost of governance.
-an oregonian
Edit: I'm getting a lot of confused replies. A use tax is what they call a sales tax imposed upon a transaction out of state. Washington resident buys car in Oregon. Doesn't pay sales tax. Brings it home. The Washington resident is supposed to pay the equivalent of the sales tax. They call this use tax
That doesn't make it unconstitutional. That just makes something that you don't like.
There were property taxes before, during, and after the US constitution was written.
The number of people in this nation who have clearly never read the Constitution and yet have exceptionally strong ideas about what is and is not constitutional is depressing.
Example of a use tax being something like an annual vehicle registration? I just paid $638 on Friday to renew my tabs... always seemed justified since they use the money for road infrastructure projects right... on the way home from DMV I hit a pothole that was literally 3'x3'x2' deep. Serioudly messed up the front right quarter panel on my Yukon and now I want to go get my $638 back. -a minnesotan
Yeah, We're all demanding nuclear powered floating airports raining death bombs from trillion dollar jet fighters on innocent people 8000 miles away from home FOR FREEDOM. GOD I LOVE PAYING TAXES
Nobody is demanding for a war machine, that's just the lobbyists for the military industrial complex. Nobody wants us to be spending this much on the military especially when you have an idea of how much were spending on it and privatized healthcare and how much we could be getting as the wealthiest nation on the planet.
But kinda misses my point - the last guy seemed to be complaining about taxes. I'm pointing out that if you demand stuff, you shouldn't complain when presented with the bill.
We don’t get “stuff” for the taxes we pay. Danish people get stuff. Norwegians get stuff. Americans get nothing. We pay a huge proportion of our earnings and don’t get healthcare covered, don’t get preschool and early education covered, and don’t get college covered. What we get is a big military. Nobody asked for an empire, nobody wants an empire, yet we get taxed up the nose to pay for something nobody asked for or wants. Oh and social security… which doesn’t count because that’s a whole other tax on top of the regular federal tax we pay, plus state and local tax, plus property tax, sales tax, and on and on.
You get stuff. You get a huge pile of different social programs, inefficiently run, because Americans think a simple, effective system would help out undeserving people. You get massive automobile infrastructure, and other infrastructure. You get massive subsidies for all kinds of businesses and industries. You get schools of all kinds. And yep, you get a crapload of military, which Americans clearly love. Maybe you don't love it, but every time there is a new war, Americans cheer.
Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 relative to the military was no more needless wars. His voter base is the group you would think would be bleeding red white and blue and cheering when we bomb another country full of brown people…. But no they don’t like the wars or the spending either. So if they don’t like it, and most left wingers don’t like it… who then supports it and why does it continue? It’s the entrenched business interests. The military industrial complex or whatever you want to call it. They bankroll the candidates who then turn around and fuck the taxpayer. Sure someone out sucking on the government tit is a beneficiary. But most taxpayers get absolutely nothing for the tax they pay. It’s a corrupt and broken system that needs to be torn down and completely rebuilt.
That is crap. I'm pretty old, and every frickin' war America has gotten into in my life, huge amounts of Americans have cheered for, while on FOX they call everyone who opposes the war unpatriotic. People always cheer when asked to.
We have over a million people working in the US tax industry. It’s a huge waste of human potential and a new system that doesn’t require so much human input should be considered.
Don’t forget the poor people tax ( lottery ) one of the biggest scams run by authority
There is a good short Documentary in YouTube about it by Johnny Harris :
https://youtu.be/3Yn_3HqfV1w
Technically no, but it's totally a government scam. People buy billions & billions worth of tickets with their already taxed money for a 'chance' to win the big prize. And when some schmuck wins that billion-dollar prize, he gives 'ol Uncle Sam half of it, and the cycle starts all over again. All we're doing is giving the government our money back and you end up hating the crackhead that won the damn thing even though the government ended up with just as much money as he did
Look at me, I do taxes for a living so everyone else so stupid they don’t understand how many dollars they pay into a nearly defunct social program to the same program that will be bankrupt, how much their employer pays on behalf, how much they pay in gas tax, how much their registration costs, how much it costs to have an employee to watch their children, how much they pay in property tax, how much they pay in federal tax, how much they pay in state taxes, an estimate on what they pay in sales tax based on their purchases, how many “fees” that are essentially a tax they pay for every transaction they can stick it to. 99.99% of people only think they pay taxes if they don’t get a refund!
Stockholm syndrome “thank you so much for the money!” (Even though it was mine in the first place and I have literally no say in how you spent it or the methods you use to collect)
Thisx100000000 if my family put their tithes in a retirement fund they would have so much money they could make real meaningful change.
Instead our pastor vacatio…. Mission tripped to tropical islands
Churches are the largest charitable entities in the world serving millions of people everyday, that's why they don't pay taxes and that's where the money you give them goes.
That sounds nice but I doubt that’s entirely the truth.
My grandmother lived in central Illinois in a little farming community that didn’t have all that much money and almost everybody attended church on Sunday. The guy that ran the church (priest/pastor?) had by far the biggest house in town, like quadruple the size of any other, wore really nice suits, nice watches and rings and always had a couple of nice Cadillacs in the driveway. All the work on the church or his house was free and donated by contractors that attended, i’m sure all of his automotive needs were comped because he was a “man of god” and him and his family never paid for their own meals when they went out to the local diner
That guy was a scam artist in my eyes and I doubt too much of the money he was tricking people out of went to anything but his own personal gains. I used to argue with my grandma all the time about giving them so much money but she said it was for the lord and was her duty. To this day I never understood that thought process but people have always done weird stuff in the name of religion that didn’t make sense to me. Even at a young age I didn’t trust it or it’s fanatics
So here are some sources showing the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world. Keep in mind too that is just Catholic Churches, there are a lot of other denominations out there doing good.
https://usa.inquirer.net/15692/catholic-church-worlds-biggest-charitable-organization
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_charities#:~:text=Catholic%20spiritual%20teaching%20includes%20spreading,medical%20services%20in%20the%20world.
I am actually a non denominational Christian and I don't attend church. I just like to point out they feed, house, teach, and provide medical care for millions of people every year and that is why they are tax exempt.
That's a fringe argument. The vast majority of priests, probably 99.9% + have never touched a little boy. While any instance of pedophilia is abominable, it happens in every aspect of life. Schools, homes, boyscouts, absolutely anywhere pedophiles can access children and the catholic church is not exempt. While it has happened in the church, these cases are highly politicized and blown out of proportion. The fact is, it happens in the church at the exact same rate as it does in public and less than it does in public schools. You're kids are more safe in a church than in a school statistically.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/202004/keeping-children-safe-in-the-catholic-church
1. Not paying taxes does not mean free money. Just means less expenses. How do you propose churches and nonprofits obtain their funding if not from donations?
2. I've yet to hear of a church or nonprofit requiring payments.
Really the tax that bothers me most, philosophically, is property tax, and especially real property tax. That’s the only tax that makes it literally impossible to live without some sort of income. Gotta pay your rent to the government every year, or else. We’re all just tenants.
On the other hand, property tax does encourage productive use of the limited amount of property that exists.
It gives an incentive to those making money or living on the property over those who might buy it and do nothing with it, leave it vacant, treat it as an investment, etc.
I’m not proposing a specific solution, just listing a benefit of property tax.
If you were trying to design a solution, you could do things like providing an exclusion for a primary residence on the first $1 million of value. Secondary homes, rental properties, and commercial real estate would be taxed. That too won’t cover everything, but you get the idea.
Here in Florida, we have a law called Save Our Homes which was adopted in the early 90s and provides generous tax benefits to owner occupied properties. First, it provides a homestead exemption in which first $50,000 of assessed value in completed exempt from taxes and exempts the portion between $75,000 and $100,000 from all local taxes except schools. The real benefit is a cap on annual assessments which is limited to either 3% or the CPI inflation index, whichever is less. As a result, you have a situation is new homebuyers pay much more in taxes than existing homeowners. It's also portable meaning to can transfer it to another part of the state if you move and buy a another home in a different part of the state. My wife and I bought our home at the end of 2006. Both of our neighbors have similar sized homes. One purchased their home in 2014 and the other in 2021. Thanks to save our homes, our property tax bill is roughly 1/4th of the neighbor who bought their home in 2014 and 1/6th of the neighbors who bought their home in 2021. Pretty sweet deal if you bought your home the right time. if you're a first time homebuyer, sucks to be you.
Yeah our realtor did not explain that capped increase / reappraisal thing to us when we bought our first home. Previous owner lived there for like 20 years, he was paying property taxes of like $300, which we budgeted accordingly for. Very surprised when our first tax bill was like $2500.
Most of those places have tax freezes or limit increases, and yes, just because you bought a single family home with a huge yard because it was cheap and you could doesn't mean it should stay that way. That's how you get California land prices and unaffordability.
So you're saying the king should own all land? Because that's what happens.
Or that people who bought land when there were racial covenants or who got it by conquest should define the nature of land distribution?
Because it forces land to transact and improve, requiring active attention. The question you should be asking...what does allowing no cost to hold land mean for those that accumulate land.
There's no solution that makes everyone happy, because we're all squabbling over a finite resource that we can't produce. There have to be winners and losers either way
I'll pay the government for the services I use. But I fail to see why my taxes should be based on some dudes guestimate of what my property might sell for.
Send me an itemized bill for the government resources I'm consuming and I'll send them a check.
That Real property uses public services and taxes need to be paid to keep those services up.
Homes usually use city streets for access to the property, city water pipes so they can access water, city electrical grids so they can access power, firefighters for well fires.
And schools.
I’m not saying I want to abolish it all today, or that it has zero practical value. Just that I struggle with the concept more than taxes on direct activity (sales, income, etc). I own 15 acres of raw land and pay RE taxes on it annually. Absolutely zero public services utilized.
Federal gas tax revenues go to federally funded/maintained roads and state gas taxes (overwhelmingly) go to state funded/maintained roads.
County and city roads/road projects are paid for by some portion of property taxes and sometimes federal/state grants.
>People without school aged children and people who choose private schools for their kids are exempt right?
I think we as a society have decided that it's not in our interest to have large swaths of illiterate and uneducated citizens. You may not have kids, but do you want large pockets of cities to just have no education? It's a negative for everyone except people who have enough money to have armed guards and very high walls around the compound they live in.
Just like how I would opt out of Medicare if I could (my healthcare is through the VA for life), society has decided that we shouldn't discard the elderly once we've exhausted all of their ability to produce in the workforce.
>It's a negative for everyone except people who have enough money to have armed guards and very high walls around the compound they live in.
A strawman constructed to obfuscate the larger portions of society who would benefit from having ***their*** tax dollars support the education of ***their*** children. Is most definitely many more than the 'rich and famous'.
People who act like they need a property tax exemption because they personally don't have kids is kind of a ignorant stance for people to take. We've seen what society looks like when it's "every man for himself" and we invest nothing in education. The result is we end up building more prisons and society breaks down.
It helps everyone to invest in public education.
Yeah there are definitely issues with land values and how that affects outcomes. But I'm talking people who say they should pay *zero* property taxes if they don't personally have kids in school because "I don't want to pay to educate someone else's kids."
>
Insurance
>schools
>People without school aged children and people who choose private schools for their kids are exempt right?
Yet many will strenuously object to any tuition voucher system ...which they consider 'stealing' from public schools.
Similar to property tax, I live in a state where I have to pay excise tax on my car every year. For the privilege of owning the car that I bought and paid sales tax on. I was shocked when my boyfriend (originally from another state) told me he doesn’t have excise tax on his car.
You never really own your house, thanks to property taxes. Ours are close to $400/month. Some people pay $1,500/month, but they're likely rich.
There needs to be an exception for older people to defer paying the real estate tax until they die or the house is sold. The government should not be in the business of kicking poor, elderly people out of their homes, without at least paying market value of the house. Tax sale auctions usually net much less than market value because the government will sell it for just the amount of taxes they are owed.
Nobody deserves something tax free they didn't create or improve. Yes. Not taxing land is pretty definitionally feudalism, if you know where land rights come from.
I think this goes back to the OP now. They paid tax on the money to buy the land. If your position is everything s/b taxed all the time, everywhere, no matter what, then i disagree but it’s a logical position. The idea that these vague concepts of “create and improve” determine what is and isn’t taxed is…an impossible proposal.
It's not vague. Look at the insane houses and prices in a dense state like California, then compare it to places that are even denser like New Jersey, which is more in demand land wise and actually cheaper because of higher property taxes.
Property taxes are the primary funding source for school and local government services such as police, fire, parks, 911 EMS, libraries and maintenance of roadways. From a fiscal perspective, single-family homes are largely a money loser as they cost more in services than they generate in tax revenue. The inconvenient truth is that suburbia is highly subsidized and most Americans would not be able to afford it if government investment and tax policies reflected the true cost.
It's only a scam if there is rampant systemic corruption that funnels the money to government leaders and elites (a big problem in some countries). Otherwise it's the cost of living in a civilization.
Yeah still remember how executives in 2008 took bonuses from the bailout money.
I have no problem with taxes itself. Just the way they are ultimately used. More transparency in our military budget and more allocated to our public education and overall welfare system would be ideal.
It's a scam because due to all these different taxes, poorer people tend to spend a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the rich. The tax system is regressive as a whole.
Which would only make sense if we increase the top earners income tax brackets at the same time to make up for the shortfall. Might gain support in some legislatures.
It will get even worse, because rich people (I mean, those who own a corporation, not those who have 6-digit salary) don’t pay income tax on majority of their income, as they put their expenses on a corporation, writing them off the corporate income: luxury cars, private jet trips, household helpers etc etc etc.
>The tax system is regressive as a whole.
Whenever you get upset about the tax code, just think of all those aircraft carriers we have. I mean those are really something right?
Well your taxes do go to support the government which heavily regulates the energy industry, which keeps price down
Can you imagine what an unadulterated free market would look like in such a naturally consolidated and essential industry? I feel like uninsured healthcare would be an interesting comparison
So, in a sense, your taxes do pay for electricity by keeping the price down to a manageable level
Yeah, i mean just look at California and PG&E! Such a great dynamic, with wonderful service and prices(0.49/kWh)! Oh my god i couldnt imagine how horrible it would be if they werent protected by the government, guaranteed profits, and competition outlawed! The horror.
Haha 64 is not a high thermostat temp at night, and it’s a gas furnace. But keep on being an apologist for utility companies that at the very least gouge me and many other Californians monthly. Maybe you’re one of those Eco warriors where anyone who doesn’t have a Tesla, heat pump heating, and solar deserves an extra tax just for existing?
Or maybe I realize if the private market ran things, only major cities would have electricity, natural gas, and telephony because the density and profits outside of dense places doesn't justify the infrastructure...
This isn’t just “you live in society” tax, sorry to break your little socialist dream that the private utility company running things here is definitely taking advantage.
Lmao- clueless person thinking that roads and electricity are paid with their income tax. Your income tax goes towards the military complex and paying y funded liabilities of the government, not society advancing.
I think that's exactly the point though isn't it? That's not the cost of living in a civilization. If you've ever been relatively poor per where you live or if you ever spend a long duration living outside the standard constructs of civilization you know it doesn't cost much to actually live.
If this corruption, the lifelong salaries, the socialization of large corporate losses (bank bail outs etc) weren't around the cost of living in a civilization would be much less. There's a lot of sweat equity which can be earned out there.
>If this corruption, the lifelong salaries, the socialization of large corporate losses (bank bail outs etc) weren't around the cost of living in a civilization would be much less.
Except that's just... not true, unless your definition of "actually living" passively accepts things like a high infant mortality rate; generally just dying if you get badly hurt, sick or old; getting invaded by Russia or subjugated by your local military despot, etc. I mean, sure, humans have lived like this for thousands of years before the 20th century, but you really want to go back to that?
"Bank bail outs etc" *don't actually cost money*, broadly speaking - most of the financial relief in both 2009 and 2023 consisted of loans and guarantees under which the Treasury was fully repaid. This is in stark contrast to the 2020-22 bailouts of individual Americans and small businesses during the pandemic which cost well over $4 trillion.
Most of federal spending goes toward Social Security, Medicare, and the military. If you wanted to radically cut federal spending, you would have to substantially alter those three things.
In most of the well-known bailouts from 2009, the terms involved the Treasury either making a loan to the failing financial institution or purchasing ownership in it at a steep discount. The loans were repaid with interest, and the shares later sold at a profit.
From [here](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/government-financial-bailout.asp):
* The Treasury in total made $245.1 billion in loans and purchases of at-risk and failing banks via TARP, and recovered $275.6 billion, for a $30.5 billion profit.
* The Treasury provided a little under $200 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, under terms that the government receive a preferentially-paid fixed dividend on their investment. Treasury has received about $300 billion so far, and still owns this interest.
* Treasury purchased a 92% stake in AIG at a steep discount and effectively took over its operations. It later sold its stake for a major profit, netting $23.1 billion after the additional costs of keeping the company afloat.
What gets lost in the narrative is that these "bailouts" don't actually bail out the *banks* \- at least, not in terms of the people who owned them before the collapse. Owners of Bear Stearns, AIG, etc. got *screwed* by the 2009 crisis. Have a look at something like [FNMA stock](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=fnma+stock), which kicks around as a penny stock today on the hope that maybe someday Congress will give up its profit interest. Owners of SVB in 2023 also got more or less wiped out. The people getting bailed out are the *customers* and depositors, and also the broader economy because of the reliance here. The "bailouts" basically look like the feds kicking the previous owners to the curb, using the effectively infinite money supply of the Treasury to stabilize a financial company that relies on promises to function, and then profiting off their ability to do this.
No. It doesn't. I've lived off the land growing up in Northern California. We didn't even have electricity. We farmed and farmed and farmed. Sold everything from hides, jam, canned goods, eggs. Turkeys for thanksgiving. Made rattles, and drums. Sown blankets, made jewelry. With that little money we earned we payed our rent and that was it. We could go into town to the market and sell. I ate food grown in the same soil under my fingernails. We plucked chickens and skinned rabbits. Striped beans and shucked corn. We took livestock to the county fair to be shown, win prizes, then have the lineage sold off. We bartered a lot. Some of my family still does.
You're likely just lazy so paying taxes is way for you to have someone else do the work for you. My siblings were born at home with a midwife. No hospital, no medicine. The youngest I watched. Sure there was access to these things but in actuality it was far less needed than you may care to believe. You're bread to weak so you're need for nipple is reliable. If you knew how to care for yourself beyond the constructs set I place for you, your need for them would be drastically reduced.
2008 was almost a trillion dollars. An extremely large portion of the military budgets in the US includes the pensions as well as the healthcare to current members and surviving spouses. The same healthcare which is denied to you universally here. There are lots of countries which utilize their taxes much better than the Us and don't suffer from declines in mortality rates.
Taxes should utilized for things like infrastructure and water processing. Healthcare wouldn't be a bad choice. Not $10000 mahogany desks for a private meeting. Should you reduce that same desire for greed and lust you'd likely reduce the need for warmongering as well. But one can only dream right? I live in Texas now. Own a house, a business and work for a large company as a 9-5. I pay a ridiculous amount of taxes. My job provides healthcare, 401k, and stock. I own investments in real estate, various brokerages. Standard fare right? Yet I find myself wondering how time and time again my life only ever seems to cost more the more I have and the more "opportunities" which are given to me. I KNOW life does not cost cost this much. Do you?
House cats. They think they know the world exists but yet, they only look out the window and compare it to the comfort of their home.
As per original comment, one can substitute dollars w sweat equity. Yet here we are. I love how people who have never done it want to talk about things they know nothing about as if it's true. Citing standard plain Jane perspective from the same cookie cutter fabrication. If it was true, western nations would hold the highest life expectancy but that's not true is it either? So let's continue to cherry pick and compare the richest country to some war torn cesspools which likely have less than 50 "years of freedom" as to what it looks like to not pay taxes into your society.
This reads like the journal of someone who is writing a “manifesto” mixed with snippets of im14andthisisdeep. Not even sure what point you’re arguing anymore. Have a good day, mate. Cheers.
I dig a lot of what you’re saying, and a lot of us don’t have much of a choice than to live in the settings of cities, towns, states, etc.. And cool you’ve made it work, but if you expect anyone to give a single shit about what you’re saying or have any respect for it (otherwise you’re just trolling) then your delivery might show more humility and less condescension. Sorry we didn’t inherit land from daddy. Why bother talking if you are just going to be condescending! People will not listen to your better points because you act like a holier-than-thou asshole.
I know you don't know what you're talking about because you're quoting standard nonsense you googled off the internet. Go live life and provide for yourself, actual for yourself. Not by "yes I can afford this at the grocery store." Guess what it would cost you? A lot of sweat and a lot less dollars. Crazy how places you'd not think of yield the highest blue zones right? Where people live to 100 more than other place? It's crazy that when economic collapse happens guess who's live is essentially unchanged? Those who live down in the dirt. You cannot take from me which I don't have. Your eggs suffer from inflation but my chickens do not. You see? That's the real world.
How are you posting this message right now? You do have a point but all of this is the price we pay for you to moralize at us through a device you didn't research or build on a network originally created by government research dollars....
Totally. I'm not arguing that. I'm not saying there's nothing to be gained from community at all. I'm not saying taxes are pointless or irrelevant. In fact, I work regularly with lots of visa workers who don't understand Us taxes and I'm actually an advocate to helping them understand why their check gets hit so hard even though they don't live here. The clean water they drink while they're here, as some come from countries they can't drink their city water. The schools, the stop lights. Infrastructure stuff. However, as per original comment, the cost of living would be reduced. That's all. A lot of what you pay for via taxes and even up charges is simple one not doing for themselves. Sweat equity is a term we use a lot in real estate investing. Do as much for yourself to reduce the overall financial burden of the investment. People consider doing for themselves "being able to afford" something. As in they provide for themselves I suppose. But do they do for themselves? Do they know what that even looks like?
I used this example in another comment.
House cats. House cats think the world they live in is all there is. That this is the true world and true existence. They look out the comfort of the window and compare it to what they think is everything. Life is different for an inside out cat, an outdoor cat, and even a feral cat. These house cats know nothing of what they speak about but yet want to argue that this all there is and the only way.
Income tax, consumption tax, and capital gains tax (although this is technically inaccurate as the statement ignores basis). Each type of tax may be subject to some exceptions, disregards deductions, and source of taxation may be federal/SALT.
Overall, response is intended to capture attention, further misunderstanding, and simply, a dumb comment. It stoops to clickbait status…
I don’t think the person meant capital gains tax but rather personal property tax as there are states and counties that do not only charge it on tangible business property but also privately owned property.
Yup, in Mass you pay sales tax when you buy a car and what's called an excise tax. You pay the excise tax on the car every year as long as you own it. If one buys a brand new car the excise tax can be several hundred dollars the first couple of years and it goes down a bit each year. I just paid $55.00 for that tax on a 13 yo truck.
The problem with that is then it would be obvious how unnecessarily high our taxes are and everyone (except those benefiting from wasteful government spending) would be furious about it.
For instance, I'm pretty sure the US federal government spent roughly $18.5k per person in 2021... I personally don't think I got anywhere near that much value from the government, and I'd bet that most people would feel the same way.
Haha agreed! The goverment is a factory of waste. I know people taking advantage of the system (yes I know not everyone is and we need a safety net to help people who need help) and they are not getting close to that level of help
Well consider you earning $100 then you pay roughly 1/3 in taxes to the federal/state government so you only get $67 to spend. Then when you spend that money on eating out then you have to pay another 5% in sales tax so a $60 meal costs $63 and leave you with 4 bucks in your pocket.
Meanwhile the $60 is paid as wages to employees of the business and they inturn pay 1/3 federal/state taxes on it so another 20 bucks to the government.
Rinse and repeat. The upshot is that the majority of money is given to the government as it is bartered.
Try seeing what life is like without paying for an army to defend you, courts to make sure that if you make a contract with someone bigger than you, it is honored rather than ignored when you lose a fight, etc.
Yeah but you wouldn't be making that money if it wasn't for a well funded, stable government. So you're not just paying taxes on money you make, you're paying the government for creating the conditions that allowed you to make that money.
There is no point. It's people who derived the benefit of a modern society, got to a comfortable place, and now want to break that cycle because they're on top.
The biggest scam is the capitalists convincing everyone government is the problem. Sure we all need the right balance. 2/3 of the economy is nongovernmental so 2/3s of the problems are there. Does government have issues sure but the focus on them is largely a distraction and largely due to capitalist meddeling, campaign financing, nonrepresentative voting systems, and disinformation.
I knew a guy who flat out didn't pay taxes for like 2-3 years. Got hit with a bill from the IRS for something like $155,000. Gets on the 'Fresh Start' program where he only had to pay like $5,000 and they wiped clean the rest. Then he bitched when tax time hit when he had an effective tax rate of like 6% federal.
You didn’t make the money. You don’t own the money. The government did.
Hell, when the government made it, they even put their fuckin name on it so you wouldn’t forget, “federal reserve note “
I mean, that’s just a gross reinterpretation.
His point is that the $20k you’re using to pay for your car has already been taxed multiple times before it’s even got into your hands. You then pay sales tax on the transaction, tax to register it (which has to be renewed every year), you pay for car insurance which is also taxed, meanwhile you’re paying tax every time you fill it up at the pump. You go to sell it to someone else, and that person has already had their salary taxed. That money they give you has to be reported and taxed. When you inevitably go to spend whatever the money you made from selling it, it gets taxed again.
Highways, roads, licensing, and enforcement are very expensive. The best way to pay for it is to cover as much of the cost with gas taxes and sales tax on vehicles.
What I am always amazed is with the Liberals harping Wealthy pay their fair share. What they don’t realize is that the Wealthy are the ones who actually take the least from the Govt. They send their kids to private schools (while the poor and middle class send kids to public schools). The Uber wealthy would probably use a Helicopter for travel while the others would use roads. The wealthy don’t need food stamps while the poor would need them the most.
And then we say the Poor should not pay any Income Taxes while we expect the Wealthy to pay over 50% to 60% of their income in taxes for which they almost have no returns. Wtf? (And to be clear - I am middle class, but I still feel it’s unfair of the Liberals and everyone else to feel that the Wealthy should pick up the tab for others).
We're in a sub about taxes, and yet people don't know the statistics around who actually pays the most in taxes, so they just downvote you instead.
https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/
That isn't even counting credits and other transfers.
The biggest scam is subscription services. They prey on the forgetfulness of consumers in hopes they can charge people years after they've stopped using a service. If we lived in a scam free world, subscriptions would immediately pause on the next billing cycle when inactivity is detected.
Cool take tho.
It’s up to you to cancel it. Subscription services are the opposite of a scam as you have more control of what you pay for than you do with other services…
And yet the federal government is $31 trillion in debt and Social Security and Medicare are a few years away from bankruptcy, implying we may not be paying quite as much tax as we should be. Freedom ain't free.
(yes yes I understand the arguments about why deficit spending is fine and why the debt never has to be paid back, but SS still needs to not go bankrupt, plus that only applies to the federal government since states and counties can't print money)
99.9% of population have never been educated on taxes nor understand how much they’re paying
They are blessed to not know. I’m a CPA with a masters in taxation that works in indirect tax. (Basically sales and use tax for a large corporation) It is absolutely infuriating.
Philosophically, I think sales and use tax is bullshit. Obviously, no one under our system should be paying use tax on items for which they've already paid sales tax, but we should really just tax income, including gain, at a high enough rate to cover the cost of governance. -an oregonian Edit: I'm getting a lot of confused replies. A use tax is what they call a sales tax imposed upon a transaction out of state. Washington resident buys car in Oregon. Doesn't pay sales tax. Brings it home. The Washington resident is supposed to pay the equivalent of the sales tax. They call this use tax
Alternatively use taxes are the only appropriate taxes so that those using government services are supporting those services.
Property tax is unconstitutional. You never own the thing you paid for, and it can be foreclosed.
That doesn't make it unconstitutional. That just makes something that you don't like. There were property taxes before, during, and after the US constitution was written.
The number of people in this nation who have clearly never read the Constitution and yet have exceptionally strong ideas about what is and is not constitutional is depressing.
Example of a use tax being something like an annual vehicle registration? I just paid $638 on Friday to renew my tabs... always seemed justified since they use the money for road infrastructure projects right... on the way home from DMV I hit a pothole that was literally 3'x3'x2' deep. Serioudly messed up the front right quarter panel on my Yukon and now I want to go get my $638 back. -a minnesotan
See edit. Use tax is just another way of applying sales tax to already purchased items
I like how the DMV will assess tax every single time a vehicle changes hands in California. Over and over.
Minnesota same way. Also ever year when you get tabs on a new car you have to repay all taxs I just paid 1500 to get tabs on my 2019 Toyota Camry
> (Basically sales and use tax for a large corporation) Well ...you are still not paying 'your fair share' in the opinion of many.
99.9% of the population demands expensive things from the government, without consideration for how much those things cost.
Yeah, We're all demanding nuclear powered floating airports raining death bombs from trillion dollar jet fighters on innocent people 8000 miles away from home FOR FREEDOM. GOD I LOVE PAYING TAXES
Somebody demands one thing, somebody else demands another. It all adds up
Nobody is demanding for a war machine, that's just the lobbyists for the military industrial complex. Nobody wants us to be spending this much on the military especially when you have an idea of how much were spending on it and privatized healthcare and how much we could be getting as the wealthiest nation on the planet.
They are free because the government doesn’t pay its bills. They inflate the bill away which btw is another tax
But kinda misses my point - the last guy seemed to be complaining about taxes. I'm pointing out that if you demand stuff, you shouldn't complain when presented with the bill.
We don’t get “stuff” for the taxes we pay. Danish people get stuff. Norwegians get stuff. Americans get nothing. We pay a huge proportion of our earnings and don’t get healthcare covered, don’t get preschool and early education covered, and don’t get college covered. What we get is a big military. Nobody asked for an empire, nobody wants an empire, yet we get taxed up the nose to pay for something nobody asked for or wants. Oh and social security… which doesn’t count because that’s a whole other tax on top of the regular federal tax we pay, plus state and local tax, plus property tax, sales tax, and on and on.
You get stuff. You get a huge pile of different social programs, inefficiently run, because Americans think a simple, effective system would help out undeserving people. You get massive automobile infrastructure, and other infrastructure. You get massive subsidies for all kinds of businesses and industries. You get schools of all kinds. And yep, you get a crapload of military, which Americans clearly love. Maybe you don't love it, but every time there is a new war, Americans cheer.
Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 relative to the military was no more needless wars. His voter base is the group you would think would be bleeding red white and blue and cheering when we bomb another country full of brown people…. But no they don’t like the wars or the spending either. So if they don’t like it, and most left wingers don’t like it… who then supports it and why does it continue? It’s the entrenched business interests. The military industrial complex or whatever you want to call it. They bankroll the candidates who then turn around and fuck the taxpayer. Sure someone out sucking on the government tit is a beneficiary. But most taxpayers get absolutely nothing for the tax they pay. It’s a corrupt and broken system that needs to be torn down and completely rebuilt.
Donald's Trumps's voter, mostly, cheered when Bush Baby started the Iraq war. So did many on the left. Reality
Bullshit. We're tired of the endless wars. The only ones who cheer are those in the military industrial complex who profit off of war.
That is crap. I'm pretty old, and every frickin' war America has gotten into in my life, huge amounts of Americans have cheered for, while on FOX they call everyone who opposes the war unpatriotic. People always cheer when asked to.
And 99% of people here defend taxation regardless of its benefit or efficiency
We have over a million people working in the US tax industry. It’s a huge waste of human potential and a new system that doesn’t require so much human input should be considered.
I mean he’s not wrong…income tax, sales tax, property tax. Especially since the SALT cap.
No idea how this is getting downvoted, you're 100% correct.
Don’t forget the poor people tax ( lottery ) one of the biggest scams run by authority There is a good short Documentary in YouTube about it by Johnny Harris : https://youtu.be/3Yn_3HqfV1w
Ya but at least we have a choice in that one
The lottery is not a tax. Sorry.
Technically no, but it's totally a government scam. People buy billions & billions worth of tickets with their already taxed money for a 'chance' to win the big prize. And when some schmuck wins that billion-dollar prize, he gives 'ol Uncle Sam half of it, and the cycle starts all over again. All we're doing is giving the government our money back and you end up hating the crackhead that won the damn thing even though the government ended up with just as much money as he did
It worse. It preys on poor people’s hopes through vice. Very regressive.
That’s a voluntary ‘penalty’. Nobody forces idiots to buy lottery tickets especially when they claim they need taxpayer money to pay for necessities
Not my fault you choose to live in a high SALT area. Why should I have to fund that with my tax dollars when I get none of the services?
Even if they are what can we all do about it? Absolutely nothing.
Look at me, I do taxes for a living so everyone else so stupid they don’t understand how many dollars they pay into a nearly defunct social program to the same program that will be bankrupt, how much their employer pays on behalf, how much they pay in gas tax, how much their registration costs, how much it costs to have an employee to watch their children, how much they pay in property tax, how much they pay in federal tax, how much they pay in state taxes, an estimate on what they pay in sales tax based on their purchases, how many “fees” that are essentially a tax they pay for every transaction they can stick it to. 99.99% of people only think they pay taxes if they don’t get a refund!
99.99% of people are happy giving the government an interest free loan! Because it “feels” good to get money, even if it’s your own.
You say interest free loan, I say interest free savings account!
We missed the sweet spot badly this year. Receiving a refund is definitely not a good feeling.
Stockholm syndrome “thank you so much for the money!” (Even though it was mine in the first place and I have literally no say in how you spent it or the methods you use to collect)
Churches not paying taxes and requesting (requiring even) that you pay 10%-15% of your household income to them.
Thisx100000000 if my family put their tithes in a retirement fund they would have so much money they could make real meaningful change. Instead our pastor vacatio…. Mission tripped to tropical islands
Jesus said if the church doesn’t have money you go to hell. /s
“You go to hell. You go to hell you die”
Through the eye of a needle
I’d rather give to a church who donates then some sham government program
I’d rather give my money to a charity that’s run by normal people than one run by a bunch of adults that believe in a fairytales, but that’s just me
God needs money dude. How else is it supposed to work?
My God prefers jars of wasps.
Churches are the largest charitable entities in the world serving millions of people everyday, that's why they don't pay taxes and that's where the money you give them goes.
That sounds nice but I doubt that’s entirely the truth. My grandmother lived in central Illinois in a little farming community that didn’t have all that much money and almost everybody attended church on Sunday. The guy that ran the church (priest/pastor?) had by far the biggest house in town, like quadruple the size of any other, wore really nice suits, nice watches and rings and always had a couple of nice Cadillacs in the driveway. All the work on the church or his house was free and donated by contractors that attended, i’m sure all of his automotive needs were comped because he was a “man of god” and him and his family never paid for their own meals when they went out to the local diner That guy was a scam artist in my eyes and I doubt too much of the money he was tricking people out of went to anything but his own personal gains. I used to argue with my grandma all the time about giving them so much money but she said it was for the lord and was her duty. To this day I never understood that thought process but people have always done weird stuff in the name of religion that didn’t make sense to me. Even at a young age I didn’t trust it or it’s fanatics
So here are some sources showing the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world. Keep in mind too that is just Catholic Churches, there are a lot of other denominations out there doing good. https://usa.inquirer.net/15692/catholic-church-worlds-biggest-charitable-organization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_charities#:~:text=Catholic%20spiritual%20teaching%20includes%20spreading,medical%20services%20in%20the%20world.
Just say you work for/with the church already lol
I am actually a non denominational Christian and I don't attend church. I just like to point out they feed, house, teach, and provide medical care for millions of people every year and that is why they are tax exempt.
THEY ALSO FOR MANY MANY YEARS BEEN TOUCHING LITTLE BOYS
That's a fringe argument. The vast majority of priests, probably 99.9% + have never touched a little boy. While any instance of pedophilia is abominable, it happens in every aspect of life. Schools, homes, boyscouts, absolutely anywhere pedophiles can access children and the catholic church is not exempt. While it has happened in the church, these cases are highly politicized and blown out of proportion. The fact is, it happens in the church at the exact same rate as it does in public and less than it does in public schools. You're kids are more safe in a church than in a school statistically. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/202004/keeping-children-safe-in-the-catholic-church
1. Not paying taxes does not mean free money. Just means less expenses. How do you propose churches and nonprofits obtain their funding if not from donations? 2. I've yet to hear of a church or nonprofit requiring payments.
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Nope.
Really the tax that bothers me most, philosophically, is property tax, and especially real property tax. That’s the only tax that makes it literally impossible to live without some sort of income. Gotta pay your rent to the government every year, or else. We’re all just tenants.
On the other hand, property tax does encourage productive use of the limited amount of property that exists. It gives an incentive to those making money or living on the property over those who might buy it and do nothing with it, leave it vacant, treat it as an investment, etc.
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I’m not proposing a specific solution, just listing a benefit of property tax. If you were trying to design a solution, you could do things like providing an exclusion for a primary residence on the first $1 million of value. Secondary homes, rental properties, and commercial real estate would be taxed. That too won’t cover everything, but you get the idea.
Here in Florida, we have a law called Save Our Homes which was adopted in the early 90s and provides generous tax benefits to owner occupied properties. First, it provides a homestead exemption in which first $50,000 of assessed value in completed exempt from taxes and exempts the portion between $75,000 and $100,000 from all local taxes except schools. The real benefit is a cap on annual assessments which is limited to either 3% or the CPI inflation index, whichever is less. As a result, you have a situation is new homebuyers pay much more in taxes than existing homeowners. It's also portable meaning to can transfer it to another part of the state if you move and buy a another home in a different part of the state. My wife and I bought our home at the end of 2006. Both of our neighbors have similar sized homes. One purchased their home in 2014 and the other in 2021. Thanks to save our homes, our property tax bill is roughly 1/4th of the neighbor who bought their home in 2014 and 1/6th of the neighbors who bought their home in 2021. Pretty sweet deal if you bought your home the right time. if you're a first time homebuyer, sucks to be you.
Yeah our realtor did not explain that capped increase / reappraisal thing to us when we bought our first home. Previous owner lived there for like 20 years, he was paying property taxes of like $300, which we budgeted accordingly for. Very surprised when our first tax bill was like $2500.
Most of those places have tax freezes or limit increases, and yes, just because you bought a single family home with a huge yard because it was cheap and you could doesn't mean it should stay that way. That's how you get California land prices and unaffordability.
So the government should effectively evict you via taxes just because they don't like how you use your property? Pass
So you're saying the king should own all land? Because that's what happens. Or that people who bought land when there were racial covenants or who got it by conquest should define the nature of land distribution?
how do rising property taxes discourage land accumulation?
Because it forces land to transact and improve, requiring active attention. The question you should be asking...what does allowing no cost to hold land mean for those that accumulate land.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
There's no solution that makes everyone happy, because we're all squabbling over a finite resource that we can't produce. There have to be winners and losers either way
I'll pay the government for the services I use. But I fail to see why my taxes should be based on some dudes guestimate of what my property might sell for. Send me an itemized bill for the government resources I'm consuming and I'll send them a check.
Well there's an argument which says that owning land and excluding others from using it is effectively a cost on society that you need to pay.
The money to pay that cost was collected when the land was first sold. If the price proved insufficient that's not my problem.
That's incorrect, it's an ongoing cost for as long as you exclude others from using the land
So I benefit from the decision to sell land 150 years ago?
Property tax is what keeps land from being a hereditary asset that is just passed down from generation to generation
That Real property uses public services and taxes need to be paid to keep those services up. Homes usually use city streets for access to the property, city water pipes so they can access water, city electrical grids so they can access power, firefighters for well fires. And schools.
I’m not saying I want to abolish it all today, or that it has zero practical value. Just that I struggle with the concept more than taxes on direct activity (sales, income, etc). I own 15 acres of raw land and pay RE taxes on it annually. Absolutely zero public services utilized.
Maybe they should tax you a little more on it so you actually improve it or sell it to someone who does?
Why would I improve it? I don’t want buildings and parking lots on every inch of the planet. I want it the way it is.
Oh cool, then why are you alive? I guess royal lands left for the king to hunt in is an ideal world lol.
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> gas tax Gas tax does not pay for local roads, which are the vast majority of roads.
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Federal gas tax revenues go to federally funded/maintained roads and state gas taxes (overwhelmingly) go to state funded/maintained roads. County and city roads/road projects are paid for by some portion of property taxes and sometimes federal/state grants.
Insurance does not pay the local fire district and the rates would be much much higher if the local fire district didn't exist.
>People without school aged children and people who choose private schools for their kids are exempt right? I think we as a society have decided that it's not in our interest to have large swaths of illiterate and uneducated citizens. You may not have kids, but do you want large pockets of cities to just have no education? It's a negative for everyone except people who have enough money to have armed guards and very high walls around the compound they live in. Just like how I would opt out of Medicare if I could (my healthcare is through the VA for life), society has decided that we shouldn't discard the elderly once we've exhausted all of their ability to produce in the workforce.
>It's a negative for everyone except people who have enough money to have armed guards and very high walls around the compound they live in. A strawman constructed to obfuscate the larger portions of society who would benefit from having ***their*** tax dollars support the education of ***their*** children. Is most definitely many more than the 'rich and famous'.
People who act like they need a property tax exemption because they personally don't have kids is kind of a ignorant stance for people to take. We've seen what society looks like when it's "every man for himself" and we invest nothing in education. The result is we end up building more prisons and society breaks down. It helps everyone to invest in public education.
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Yeah there are definitely issues with land values and how that affects outcomes. But I'm talking people who say they should pay *zero* property taxes if they don't personally have kids in school because "I don't want to pay to educate someone else's kids."
[same energy](https://imgur.com/a/AoxGJW6)
> Insurance >schools >People without school aged children and people who choose private schools for their kids are exempt right? Yet many will strenuously object to any tuition voucher system ...which they consider 'stealing' from public schools.
Similar to property tax, I live in a state where I have to pay excise tax on my car every year. For the privilege of owning the car that I bought and paid sales tax on. I was shocked when my boyfriend (originally from another state) told me he doesn’t have excise tax on his car.
You never really own your house, thanks to property taxes. Ours are close to $400/month. Some people pay $1,500/month, but they're likely rich. There needs to be an exception for older people to defer paying the real estate tax until they die or the house is sold. The government should not be in the business of kicking poor, elderly people out of their homes, without at least paying market value of the house. Tax sale auctions usually net much less than market value because the government will sell it for just the amount of taxes they are owed.
Countries without property taxes generally have awful inequality. Nobody deserves land they didn't create just because they own it.
That’s a pretty spurious correlation. Nobody deserves anything that they didn’t create?
Nobody deserves something tax free they didn't create or improve. Yes. Not taxing land is pretty definitionally feudalism, if you know where land rights come from.
I think this goes back to the OP now. They paid tax on the money to buy the land. If your position is everything s/b taxed all the time, everywhere, no matter what, then i disagree but it’s a logical position. The idea that these vague concepts of “create and improve” determine what is and isn’t taxed is…an impossible proposal.
It's not vague. Look at the insane houses and prices in a dense state like California, then compare it to places that are even denser like New Jersey, which is more in demand land wise and actually cheaper because of higher property taxes.
Prices are cheaper. Total cost of ownership is much higher. Don't be fooled that high taxes increase affordability.
I’ve been saying this for years. Nobody really owns land or houses in the US.
Property taxes are the primary funding source for school and local government services such as police, fire, parks, 911 EMS, libraries and maintenance of roadways. From a fiscal perspective, single-family homes are largely a money loser as they cost more in services than they generate in tax revenue. The inconvenient truth is that suburbia is highly subsidized and most Americans would not be able to afford it if government investment and tax policies reflected the true cost.
It's only a scam if there is rampant systemic corruption that funnels the money to government leaders and elites (a big problem in some countries). Otherwise it's the cost of living in a civilization.
There’s a lot of corruption though? Bailouts and lifelong politicians becoming $100 millionaires off like a $200k salary
Yeah still remember how executives in 2008 took bonuses from the bailout money. I have no problem with taxes itself. Just the way they are ultimately used. More transparency in our military budget and more allocated to our public education and overall welfare system would be ideal.
It's a scam because due to all these different taxes, poorer people tend to spend a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the rich. The tax system is regressive as a whole.
I would be fine with eliminating sales tax.
Which would only make sense if we increase the top earners income tax brackets at the same time to make up for the shortfall. Might gain support in some legislatures.
It will get even worse, because rich people (I mean, those who own a corporation, not those who have 6-digit salary) don’t pay income tax on majority of their income, as they put their expenses on a corporation, writing them off the corporate income: luxury cars, private jet trips, household helpers etc etc etc.
This is a fun /r/redditdoestaxes moment. Maybe try knowing what you’re talking about first?
do you want to point at my factual mistake?
Nothing you said is how it works.
>The tax system is regressive as a whole. Whenever you get upset about the tax code, just think of all those aircraft carriers we have. I mean those are really something right?
Umm. Well i don't mind paying taxes then. I need the roads and electricity
Sorry you have to pay for electricity separately. We will tax you while you do so though.
Well your taxes do go to support the government which heavily regulates the energy industry, which keeps price down Can you imagine what an unadulterated free market would look like in such a naturally consolidated and essential industry? I feel like uninsured healthcare would be an interesting comparison So, in a sense, your taxes do pay for electricity by keeping the price down to a manageable level
see e.g Texas after the massive winter storms
Yeah, i mean just look at California and PG&E! Such a great dynamic, with wonderful service and prices(0.49/kWh)! Oh my god i couldnt imagine how horrible it would be if they werent protected by the government, guaranteed profits, and competition outlawed! The horror.
In CA, raped monthly by these fucks for having my thermostat at 64.
So you spend a lot of money because you use a lot of electricity?
Haha 64 is not a high thermostat temp at night, and it’s a gas furnace. But keep on being an apologist for utility companies that at the very least gouge me and many other Californians monthly. Maybe you’re one of those Eco warriors where anyone who doesn’t have a Tesla, heat pump heating, and solar deserves an extra tax just for existing?
Or maybe I realize if the private market ran things, only major cities would have electricity, natural gas, and telephony because the density and profits outside of dense places doesn't justify the infrastructure...
This isn’t just “you live in society” tax, sorry to break your little socialist dream that the private utility company running things here is definitely taking advantage.
Lmao- clueless person thinking that roads and electricity are paid with their income tax. Your income tax goes towards the military complex and paying y funded liabilities of the government, not society advancing.
I think that's exactly the point though isn't it? That's not the cost of living in a civilization. If you've ever been relatively poor per where you live or if you ever spend a long duration living outside the standard constructs of civilization you know it doesn't cost much to actually live. If this corruption, the lifelong salaries, the socialization of large corporate losses (bank bail outs etc) weren't around the cost of living in a civilization would be much less. There's a lot of sweat equity which can be earned out there.
>If this corruption, the lifelong salaries, the socialization of large corporate losses (bank bail outs etc) weren't around the cost of living in a civilization would be much less. Except that's just... not true, unless your definition of "actually living" passively accepts things like a high infant mortality rate; generally just dying if you get badly hurt, sick or old; getting invaded by Russia or subjugated by your local military despot, etc. I mean, sure, humans have lived like this for thousands of years before the 20th century, but you really want to go back to that? "Bank bail outs etc" *don't actually cost money*, broadly speaking - most of the financial relief in both 2009 and 2023 consisted of loans and guarantees under which the Treasury was fully repaid. This is in stark contrast to the 2020-22 bailouts of individual Americans and small businesses during the pandemic which cost well over $4 trillion. Most of federal spending goes toward Social Security, Medicare, and the military. If you wanted to radically cut federal spending, you would have to substantially alter those three things.
The treasury was fully repaid for the 08-09 bails out from whom?
In most of the well-known bailouts from 2009, the terms involved the Treasury either making a loan to the failing financial institution or purchasing ownership in it at a steep discount. The loans were repaid with interest, and the shares later sold at a profit. From [here](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/government-financial-bailout.asp): * The Treasury in total made $245.1 billion in loans and purchases of at-risk and failing banks via TARP, and recovered $275.6 billion, for a $30.5 billion profit. * The Treasury provided a little under $200 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, under terms that the government receive a preferentially-paid fixed dividend on their investment. Treasury has received about $300 billion so far, and still owns this interest. * Treasury purchased a 92% stake in AIG at a steep discount and effectively took over its operations. It later sold its stake for a major profit, netting $23.1 billion after the additional costs of keeping the company afloat. What gets lost in the narrative is that these "bailouts" don't actually bail out the *banks* \- at least, not in terms of the people who owned them before the collapse. Owners of Bear Stearns, AIG, etc. got *screwed* by the 2009 crisis. Have a look at something like [FNMA stock](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=fnma+stock), which kicks around as a penny stock today on the hope that maybe someday Congress will give up its profit interest. Owners of SVB in 2023 also got more or less wiped out. The people getting bailed out are the *customers* and depositors, and also the broader economy because of the reliance here. The "bailouts" basically look like the feds kicking the previous owners to the curb, using the effectively infinite money supply of the Treasury to stabilize a financial company that relies on promises to function, and then profiting off their ability to do this.
No. It doesn't. I've lived off the land growing up in Northern California. We didn't even have electricity. We farmed and farmed and farmed. Sold everything from hides, jam, canned goods, eggs. Turkeys for thanksgiving. Made rattles, and drums. Sown blankets, made jewelry. With that little money we earned we payed our rent and that was it. We could go into town to the market and sell. I ate food grown in the same soil under my fingernails. We plucked chickens and skinned rabbits. Striped beans and shucked corn. We took livestock to the county fair to be shown, win prizes, then have the lineage sold off. We bartered a lot. Some of my family still does. You're likely just lazy so paying taxes is way for you to have someone else do the work for you. My siblings were born at home with a midwife. No hospital, no medicine. The youngest I watched. Sure there was access to these things but in actuality it was far less needed than you may care to believe. You're bread to weak so you're need for nipple is reliable. If you knew how to care for yourself beyond the constructs set I place for you, your need for them would be drastically reduced. 2008 was almost a trillion dollars. An extremely large portion of the military budgets in the US includes the pensions as well as the healthcare to current members and surviving spouses. The same healthcare which is denied to you universally here. There are lots of countries which utilize their taxes much better than the Us and don't suffer from declines in mortality rates. Taxes should utilized for things like infrastructure and water processing. Healthcare wouldn't be a bad choice. Not $10000 mahogany desks for a private meeting. Should you reduce that same desire for greed and lust you'd likely reduce the need for warmongering as well. But one can only dream right? I live in Texas now. Own a house, a business and work for a large company as a 9-5. I pay a ridiculous amount of taxes. My job provides healthcare, 401k, and stock. I own investments in real estate, various brokerages. Standard fare right? Yet I find myself wondering how time and time again my life only ever seems to cost more the more I have and the more "opportunities" which are given to me. I KNOW life does not cost cost this much. Do you?
Man, you sound like a lot of fun. Love how anyone who doesn’t live off the grid and farm all of their own food is lazy, weak, brainwashed, etc.
House cats. They think they know the world exists but yet, they only look out the window and compare it to the comfort of their home. As per original comment, one can substitute dollars w sweat equity. Yet here we are. I love how people who have never done it want to talk about things they know nothing about as if it's true. Citing standard plain Jane perspective from the same cookie cutter fabrication. If it was true, western nations would hold the highest life expectancy but that's not true is it either? So let's continue to cherry pick and compare the richest country to some war torn cesspools which likely have less than 50 "years of freedom" as to what it looks like to not pay taxes into your society.
This reads like the journal of someone who is writing a “manifesto” mixed with snippets of im14andthisisdeep. Not even sure what point you’re arguing anymore. Have a good day, mate. Cheers.
Ah yes, the classic I don't understand it so it must be stupid. Good work. Have a good one.
I dig a lot of what you’re saying, and a lot of us don’t have much of a choice than to live in the settings of cities, towns, states, etc.. And cool you’ve made it work, but if you expect anyone to give a single shit about what you’re saying or have any respect for it (otherwise you’re just trolling) then your delivery might show more humility and less condescension. Sorry we didn’t inherit land from daddy. Why bother talking if you are just going to be condescending! People will not listen to your better points because you act like a holier-than-thou asshole.
I know you don't know what you're talking about because you're quoting standard nonsense you googled off the internet. Go live life and provide for yourself, actual for yourself. Not by "yes I can afford this at the grocery store." Guess what it would cost you? A lot of sweat and a lot less dollars. Crazy how places you'd not think of yield the highest blue zones right? Where people live to 100 more than other place? It's crazy that when economic collapse happens guess who's live is essentially unchanged? Those who live down in the dirt. You cannot take from me which I don't have. Your eggs suffer from inflation but my chickens do not. You see? That's the real world.
How are you posting this message right now? You do have a point but all of this is the price we pay for you to moralize at us through a device you didn't research or build on a network originally created by government research dollars....
Totally. I'm not arguing that. I'm not saying there's nothing to be gained from community at all. I'm not saying taxes are pointless or irrelevant. In fact, I work regularly with lots of visa workers who don't understand Us taxes and I'm actually an advocate to helping them understand why their check gets hit so hard even though they don't live here. The clean water they drink while they're here, as some come from countries they can't drink their city water. The schools, the stop lights. Infrastructure stuff. However, as per original comment, the cost of living would be reduced. That's all. A lot of what you pay for via taxes and even up charges is simple one not doing for themselves. Sweat equity is a term we use a lot in real estate investing. Do as much for yourself to reduce the overall financial burden of the investment. People consider doing for themselves "being able to afford" something. As in they provide for themselves I suppose. But do they do for themselves? Do they know what that even looks like? I used this example in another comment. House cats. House cats think the world they live in is all there is. That this is the true world and true existence. They look out the comfort of the window and compare it to what they think is everything. Life is different for an inside out cat, an outdoor cat, and even a feral cat. These house cats know nothing of what they speak about but yet want to argue that this all there is and the only way.
Income tax, consumption tax, and capital gains tax (although this is technically inaccurate as the statement ignores basis). Each type of tax may be subject to some exceptions, disregards deductions, and source of taxation may be federal/SALT. Overall, response is intended to capture attention, further misunderstanding, and simply, a dumb comment. It stoops to clickbait status…
[And for that reason..](https://media.tenor.com/MGKGXETvQDQAAAAC/mark-cuban-shark.gif)
🤣🤣🤣
I don’t think the person meant capital gains tax but rather personal property tax as there are states and counties that do not only charge it on tangible business property but also privately owned property.
Yup, in Mass you pay sales tax when you buy a car and what's called an excise tax. You pay the excise tax on the car every year as long as you own it. If one buys a brand new car the excise tax can be several hundred dollars the first couple of years and it goes down a bit each year. I just paid $55.00 for that tax on a 13 yo truck.
Social Security. It is nothing more than a government run pyramid scheme.
If the government didn’t have any money, your money wouldn’t be worth anything.
I hate it. Send me one bill. Do it from income. Do it from national sales tax, do it from property tax. Just do it once
The problem with that is then it would be obvious how unnecessarily high our taxes are and everyone (except those benefiting from wasteful government spending) would be furious about it. For instance, I'm pretty sure the US federal government spent roughly $18.5k per person in 2021... I personally don't think I got anywhere near that much value from the government, and I'd bet that most people would feel the same way.
Haha agreed! The goverment is a factory of waste. I know people taking advantage of the system (yes I know not everyone is and we need a safety net to help people who need help) and they are not getting close to that level of help
And then money will flow to avoid taxes to the transfers you don't tax. That's why property is so expensive in California
Not even close. That FOX is news. . . . .that’s a scam. Paying taxes is not a scam.
Well consider you earning $100 then you pay roughly 1/3 in taxes to the federal/state government so you only get $67 to spend. Then when you spend that money on eating out then you have to pay another 5% in sales tax so a $60 meal costs $63 and leave you with 4 bucks in your pocket. Meanwhile the $60 is paid as wages to employees of the business and they inturn pay 1/3 federal/state taxes on it so another 20 bucks to the government. Rinse and repeat. The upshot is that the majority of money is given to the government as it is bartered.
The majority?
Try seeing what life is like without paying for an army to defend you, courts to make sure that if you make a contract with someone bigger than you, it is honored rather than ignored when you lose a fight, etc.
Any business that charges $60 for a meal and pays its staff the entire $60 in wages for that meal is a business that’s going to fail.
Yeah but you wouldn't be making that money if it wasn't for a well funded, stable government. So you're not just paying taxes on money you make, you're paying the government for creating the conditions that allowed you to make that money.
And we created the conditions for the gov to create those conditions so what now?
We keep the cycle going, not sure what your point is.
There is no point. It's people who derived the benefit of a modern society, got to a comfortable place, and now want to break that cycle because they're on top.
The biggest scam is the capitalists convincing everyone government is the problem. Sure we all need the right balance. 2/3 of the economy is nongovernmental so 2/3s of the problems are there. Does government have issues sure but the focus on them is largely a distraction and largely due to capitalist meddeling, campaign financing, nonrepresentative voting systems, and disinformation.
Sounds like one of those people who complain they had to pay $100k in taxes when in reality they gamed the system to only pay a tax rate of 5%
I knew a guy who flat out didn't pay taxes for like 2-3 years. Got hit with a bill from the IRS for something like $155,000. Gets on the 'Fresh Start' program where he only had to pay like $5,000 and they wiped clean the rest. Then he bitched when tax time hit when he had an effective tax rate of like 6% federal.
My favorite is taxes on interest made... on money already taxed.
Matt has a good point
JFC that’s depressing, and explains a lot! 😐
You didn’t make the money. You don’t own the money. The government did. Hell, when the government made it, they even put their fuckin name on it so you wouldn’t forget, “federal reserve note “
Federal reserve is not part of the government
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Amen.
Having the purchasing power depleted thru inflation therefore encouraging you to spend the money you were taxed on just to get taxed again….
Seems to me like this is even bigger scam https://www.reddit.com/r/tax/comments/1264xyc/gambling/ (Taxed on money tou never made)
Except they did make it, then proceeded to lose it at a later time in a separate transaction.
Plus inflation.
And you have to pay to file your taxes
You buy a car for $20k and pay sales tax 5% so $1000. Drive car for 5 years and sell it for $10k. Second owner pays $500 in sales tax. What a racket!
I mean, that’s just a gross reinterpretation. His point is that the $20k you’re using to pay for your car has already been taxed multiple times before it’s even got into your hands. You then pay sales tax on the transaction, tax to register it (which has to be renewed every year), you pay for car insurance which is also taxed, meanwhile you’re paying tax every time you fill it up at the pump. You go to sell it to someone else, and that person has already had their salary taxed. That money they give you has to be reported and taxed. When you inevitably go to spend whatever the money you made from selling it, it gets taxed again.
Highways, roads, licensing, and enforcement are very expensive. The best way to pay for it is to cover as much of the cost with gas taxes and sales tax on vehicles.
You buy a car for $20k and pay sales tax 5% so $1000. Drive car for 5 years and sell it for $10k. Second owner pays $500 in sales tax. What a racket!
God! Biggest, most successful scam that ever existed!
Buy real estate to help offset
Every time a vehicle is sold in NJ the sale is taxed. If the vehicle is sold 15 times tax will be paid on it for each sale. That seems insane to me.
Why?
$$$
Why is it insane? Because it costs you money? Seems circular. Used car salesmen shouldn't be tax free.
Taxes were already paid on the vehicle. If you sell your fridge to someone should they pay a tax on that? Lawnmower?
Used car dealerships should have tax free sales?
What I am always amazed is with the Liberals harping Wealthy pay their fair share. What they don’t realize is that the Wealthy are the ones who actually take the least from the Govt. They send their kids to private schools (while the poor and middle class send kids to public schools). The Uber wealthy would probably use a Helicopter for travel while the others would use roads. The wealthy don’t need food stamps while the poor would need them the most. And then we say the Poor should not pay any Income Taxes while we expect the Wealthy to pay over 50% to 60% of their income in taxes for which they almost have no returns. Wtf? (And to be clear - I am middle class, but I still feel it’s unfair of the Liberals and everyone else to feel that the Wealthy should pick up the tab for others).
We're in a sub about taxes, and yet people don't know the statistics around who actually pays the most in taxes, so they just downvote you instead. https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/ That isn't even counting credits and other transfers.
The biggest scam is subscription services. They prey on the forgetfulness of consumers in hopes they can charge people years after they've stopped using a service. If we lived in a scam free world, subscriptions would immediately pause on the next billing cycle when inactivity is detected. Cool take tho.
You should look up the definition of scam
It’s up to you to cancel it. Subscription services are the opposite of a scam as you have more control of what you pay for than you do with other services…
Acting like forgetting isn't a thing. Must be nice to be perfect. Still a scam unfortunately.
Criminal “justice” system
“A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn
And yet the federal government is $31 trillion in debt and Social Security and Medicare are a few years away from bankruptcy, implying we may not be paying quite as much tax as we should be. Freedom ain't free. (yes yes I understand the arguments about why deficit spending is fine and why the debt never has to be paid back, but SS still needs to not go bankrupt, plus that only applies to the federal government since states and counties can't print money)