Why is it that the average federal income tax was 2% in the 1950s but has now jumped to 25%? What do we get?

Question

"Taxes at all levels -- federal, state, and local; hidden and visible -- take about 50% of a family's income. We must work from January to June just to pay taxes."

http://www.lp.org/issues/family-budget.shtml

What new and incredible services is the government now providing to us to justify such a massive increase in taxes? What should be done about this?

Answer 1

Hey Halliuburton don't come Cheap!!!!

Answer 2

As Davidmi points out (and provides the data for), the *lowest* tax bracket in the 1950s was 20% or just a little more some years, while the highest was 91%.

In 2007, the lowest tax bracket is 10% and the highest is 35% (and you have to be making a *lot* to get into the 35% bracket -- a good yearly salary is in the 15%-25% bracket).

The myth that Americans are significantly more taxed in modern times compared to the 1950s is exactly that -- a myth. By the numbers, the average joe is taxed about the same or a little less even, while the extreme high end of the spectrum is taxed significantly less.

Not making a value judgement on which level of taxation is better or worse, but the cited statistic is clearly off.

Answer 3

All of your income taxes pay the interest on the Federal Reserve Loan. The Federal Reserve Bank (not really federal but private) loans us our own currency at interest, which was not the origial method. The government used to just print our money for free which is how it should be. INCOME tax pays for nothing but interest and all the actual services are paid for by: sales tax, property tax, state tax, ect... The total money spent this year on the Iraq war was about $80 billion plus the rest of the budget is about $400 billion per year total, much of this cost is actually covered by the other taxes listed above. I know because I did some calculations and actually gave the government the benifit of the doubt every turn. yet income tax itself is over $1 trillion, added to the other sales taxes the is a hugh surplus of money that cannot be acounted for, why? Watch this video and the other four parts!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ
If your done watching these 5 clips about the Federal reserve you probably realize that YOUR NOT EVEN SUPPOSE TO HAVE ANY INCOME TAX!!!! 71/2 cents per dollar sales tax + property tax + social security tax.... I urge you to do the math on your own because there are hundreds of billions of dollars unnacounted for !!

Answer 4

The 2% rate for the 50's is so far from reality it can be nothing but a lie. See http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/151.html for historical and current tax rates.

During the 50's the tax rates ranged from about 20% on the low end to 92% on the high end. The current rates range from 10 - 35%

Answer 5

It's called massive spending on unimaginably unimportant things. Do you know, before the income tax was introduced, the government spent so little that it was able to stay afloat through import tariffs? Over time, politicians gradually saw how much potential cash there was for them to steal in people's incomes, so they slowly ramped it up. This will continue until the people suddenly realize they aren't keeping one red cent, at which point it will be too late: such is called "communism." The only way to stop it is to decrease spending, then taxes, in intervals until the government has shrunk to the size it should be.

Answer 6

I read your link, but I don't believe it.

The lowest tax rate in 1950 was 17.4%
The lowest tax rate in 1955 was 20%

Both on incomes up to $4,000

The average income in 1955 was $3,301.44

The upper tax rate during the 1950's was 91%.

Today, the lowest tax rate is 15%

On incomes up to $43,850

And the upper tax rate is 39.6%

You would have to make over $100,000 in the US without any deductions, to pay Federal tax's at a 25% rate.

That webpage is using screwy numbers.

Answer 7

Our government screwed things up time and again. They are pretty much influenced by the rich, and some of our tax money actually gets pocketed by these same morons too just because of the stupidity of our own government. The rich are getting richer, and it just goes to show how greedy they are when they see all the working Americans pay all that tax money and they know how to influenced the government to actually give them our hard earned dollars. These so called politicians should all be shot because they can get away with things by lying through their teeth while talking to you face to face.

Answer 8

As the husband of the woman who wants to be able to eventually make you work until August to pay your taxes might say, "It depends on the definition of "us". Some of "us" get a lot more benefits from other peoples' taxes than others of "us". I can't think of any government bennies I've ever received, other than VA loans. I had a niece at one time who never worked a day in her life, but milked government program after program for all it was worth.

Answer 9

You get a half trillion dollar defense budget which is bigger than the entire rest of the world combined.

Enjoy.

Actually the highest rate in the '50's was 91%. And America was doing a whole lot better.

Answer 10

We got socialism. Democrats want to spread wealth through taxation. Democrat candidates keep on promising more and more free stuff for poor people. They don't care working people have to pay for it.

Here in America, Democrats are promising free stuff to illegal immigrants EVEN before illegal immigrants have the right to vote. If that is not socialism, I don't know what is.

The only reason they are using a personal computer right now is because of the U.S.'s founding fathers. Computer chips and personal computers would have never been invented if America was a socialist country. America has the most patents in the world and it is because of this country's founding fathers.

Capitalism creates an environment that promotes innovation while socialism creates an environment that hampers innovation.

China, Russia, and other socialist countries are forced to spy on U.S. companies (including defense contractors) because they are incapable of developing their own inventions. Canada kicked out nearly 1,000 communist Chinese spies in the last couple of years and China has around 35,000 spies in the U.S

Modern Democrats are collectivists and they have nothing in common with the founders of this country who were classical liberalists (also called individualists).

Socialism stifles innovation. America cannot survive as a socialistic country. Socialistic welfare will slow any economy that is based on innovation. Countries that survive mainly off of exporting commodities (such as oil) don't have to be concerned with innovating to survive.

America has the most patents in the world because the founding fathers were capitalistic in their ways. They read Adam Smith's works.

The reason why the U.S. has a $12 trillion gross domestic product is because of innovation. Most of the stuff used around the world was invented in America (that includes cell phones, person computers, LED, lcd screen, plasma tv, microwave oven, electronic television (year 1927), optical recording (cd,dvd, etc), refrigerator, air conditioner, digital camera, digital music recording, digital video, computer chip, lightbulb, laptop computer, operating system, computer databases, word processors, spreadsheets, high level computer languages, digital radio transmission, tcp/ip (the internet), etc.. )

A country's wealth increases by manufacturing new innovations. Currently, the U.S. is allowing other countries to manufacture U.S. inventions.

Many countries survive by just manufacturing U.S. inventions and later exporting them. That is why they are so concerned about the falling dollar. A falling dollar will not allow countries to manufacture U.S. products below the cost of manufacturing the products in the U.S..