Are American's over-taxed?

Question

If you take a step back and look at how much we are taxed at the local, state, and federal level on an individual basis: gas tax, property tax, sales tax, etc. The list goes on and on....yet we have a major deficit and the government is looking to tax us more. Can you believe we have to pay to drive on some roads even though the government has collected billions in taxes for road improvement. Where is the accountability? How much taxes is collected total at all government levels per year? When this country was first founded, the citizens rebelled against the unfair taxes imposed by the British. How have things changed?

Answer 1

The thing that often seems to be forgotten when thinking about how much of your income goes on taxes, is how much you rely on your society as a whole for the opportunity to earn that income in the first place. (I don't mean you personally, by the way!)

If you are a high earner, you are only able to be in that position because of the infrastructure put in place by your government to ensure your society runs smoothly; because of the contributions of countless other lower-earners within your society who do the jobs that you choose not to do, so that you can be free to spend your time on your high-earning job. Therefore the fact that you are taxed a percentage of your income, and are therefore effectively subsidising services for lower earners, is entirely fair, since your comfortable existence relies on them.

The same is true for companies as well as individuals. What is always galling is to see the loopholes that exist to allow those with the means to pursue them to avoid paying their fair share of tax - however, this does not mean that the tax system in general is unfair.

The other question is of course how the government spends the taxes it has raised, and there can be no doubt that their are inefficiencies in the way it spends it, and disagreement over the areas in which it is spent, but that is perhaps the topic of a different question.

Answer 2

Yup - most Americans pay about 50% of their income in taxes, if not more - but the goverment has managed to be sneeky enough with it that it is hard to add them all up. Still just the 33% income tax is absurd to say nothing of SS taxes and then the doubble tax of sales tax.

But again - the goverment has done an EXELENT job of hiding these taxes so that people think it is not nearly as bad as it truely is.

But the truely sad part is what we get in exchange for our taxes. If we lived in a european country - we would at least get health care and insurance in exchange for our huge tax burdin. In america we get a huglt bloated deficit and an absurdly sized military that serves no productive purpose. Yippie. Makes me proud to be an American.

What we need in this country is a comprehencive restructuring of the tax law and system. Read the "Fair Tax" book for more info.

Answer 3

As a British man i can honestly say things are no better over here. Both the US and Britain are taxed far too much and yet they want to take more money from us. The simple truth remains that they actually have sufficient money, but they use it in the wrong place and waste it. So rather than find where the money is being misused they would rather just tax people more. You can garentee that President Bush and Primeminister Blair are not paying taxes and when they retire they will retire on a large sum of money.

Answer 4

Hey, this is my number one argument against tax hikes that everyone always wants. The reality is that there is a phenomenal amount of government waste. To make matters worse, most people seem genuinely brainwashed into believing that taxation is anything other than legalized theft.

If you want tax reform, pray for a flat lump amount taxed every year, not a percent at all. If every American had to actually pay for all the services they demand, suddenly there would be a lot less demand to have all those services. It's shameful to expect a handful of people to pay all the tax revenues.

If you were paying your fair share in taxes last year, it would come out to about $8243 for federal taxes per person. If you paid less than that, your share of the federal tax revenue had to be paid by someone else. If you had a family of five, it would come to $41,215. Less than that, and you're asking someone else to pay for your children because you aren't.

Forget all the entitlements and other handouts. $41,215 is obscene for a family of five to pay in annual -federal- tax. That's not even counting state, county, social security, medicare, sales tax, property tax, luxury tax, gas tax, etc. That's just federal. People love to criticize the rich, but the reality is this society has glutted itself on the backs of their tax dollars with handouts and entitlements for far too long.

Answer 5

one of the reasons the feds do not want to go with a national sales tax and get rid of all the others, is that you would then easily be able to see just how much is really taxed. Alot of people pay nothing in income tax, but the gas, property, etc hit everyone at one level or another.

Answer 6

Well, in relation to actual government expenditures, the answer is clearly no, as we have a large deficits.

From an ideological perspective, you have to ask yourself if you feel that the services provided by government (and which you pay for via taxes) are justified. If you think that the government on the whole makes a reasonable contribution to society then no we're probably not overtaxed. If you think that the government by and large just wastes money then the answer is probably yes.

Answer 7

Taxes are going up day to day, what did you expect? If our Government is allowing big business to build whatever they want by taking money from Government Funds programs. Look this how it work, they take 50% taxes from us, and the other 50% that we have left they make is been taken away through bills, expanses and rising the price on everything else, the system can't fail.

Answer 8

I figure after all the taxes are figured up we're paying over half of what we make in taxes one way or another. If this keeps up the goose that lays the golden eggs is going to give out.

Answer 9

the poor and middle class are taxed to death the rich get tax breaks explain to me the logic in that?

Answer 10

Provoke another Boston teaparty!

Maybe this helps.