I don’t get this, the only argument is the like Austrian school taxation is theft argument but in that case all the taxes that income tax haters like are also just as much theft.
You see a new article every week about why we need to get rid of income tax and replace it with some asinine “progressive consumption tax” that allows for poor people to write some stuff off but not other stuff its a mess.
every inane over complicated solution always runs into either not making enough, being to expensive to enforce and calculate or being regressive
even in Europe which comes the closest to this with the use of vats but income tax is still their main cash cow
this is a solution in search of a problem income tax works, economist agree when done right (as in you don’t raise income tax 50% in a day)it has the least distortion, it’s easy to collect and raises massive revenue
I don’t have a problem with paying income tax. I do have a problem with how my taxes are spent.
Every. Single. Day. I have to hear about the US MIC turning people into skeletons for freedom. Once a year I drive by a local project, such as adding wheelchair accessible ramps to the local park, and get to feel good that some of my taxes are helping people.
Everybody is stressed out all of the time by the Sword of Damocles that is US healthcare, hoping that they do not get any kind of illness because then they will be broke, but my income taxes go to fund the free as fuck healthcare that the people in congress, who are the people denying universal healthcare to everyone else, enjoy and enables them to live. for. fucking. ever.
Real wages in the US haven’t kept pace with inflation, but my income taxes don’t subsidize food and housing. They subsidize corporations that gamble with peoples’ homes and retirements.
Capitalism is infecting every level of society with this “I got mine” mentality that spreads isolation and mental illness, but my income taxes go to the never-ending militarization of the American police force.
Americans are increasingly undereducated and ill-informed, but my income taxes increasingly go toward the funding of theological charter schools that teach people that the world is 6,000 years old and that humans existed with dinosaurs.
I don’t agree with the majority of things that my income taxes pay for, but if I try to refuse to pay then, then I will lose my home and my freedom to get ground to death in this indifferent American hellscape, my wife will lose access to healthcare and die, and my daughter will be next up in the queue to be crushed by a government that doesn’t. give. a. fuck.
A lot of working and middle class people don’t understand how tax brackets work and a lot of upper class people don’t have a financial incentive to correct the working and middle class.
Also, a lot of upper class people have shifted their income from wages to capital gains, which has a lower effective tax rate.
I’ve always hated income tax whenever I hear how many times taxpayers money is mis-spent on shit that isn’t needed nor necessary. Like, our taxpayer money is going into the funding of bullets and bombs that are then used to kill innocent people whether globally or domestically.
And it isn’t like we have a choice to not file taxes. I mean, I’d love it if at least 50 million americans would stop filing taxes for a few years, maybe even one. What’s the IRS going to do? Fucking arrest those 50 million? Audit everyone? Ohhhhhhh…I’m so scared! Not like paying taxes in hasn’t done a damn thing when we need something done the most. The evidence is mountains high as to how mis-spent it is.
It ain’t the tax it’s the brokeness. If I wasn’t so broke you could tax my dick and I’d be perfectly ok with that.
I now hate income tax because it’s just giving a handout to billionaires (and military contractors, but I repeat myself).
conservatives in the us think they are saving money from having no income taxes, its true if you make millions+ year in places like texas or florida, but there are pay that make way less than that move to those states, and then are surprised when they are paying more for other taxes and then paying difference in the lack of healtchare, or schools, or public services in the area.
the problem is property taxes is very high in blue areas, which makes too expensive to live in addition to renting and housing prices.
I don’t hate income tax. But from my personal experience, when I was a young lad with no political leaning, seeing a quarter of my first paycheck just… disappear into the void (what I thought back then) definitely made me feel something not great
I mean right now I can see that an income tax system is at the very least a “necessary evil”, but I could also see how ppl without a fuller perspective of things might interpret this as almost theft (the evil guvunment stole muh money!!!)
Making the employer pay the tax before the money reach the employee solves quite a lot. I understand that’s not the practice in the US.
How do you figure this isn’t the way it is in USA? My taxes are paid before I ever see a paycheck.
I don’t think it’s enforced by law. Only federal tax. Maybe different in different states? Anyway, Americans are always whining about it, so I figured it was national/federal.
I’m confused. You say taxes are not paid by the employer before the employee is paid, but you’re also saying Americans are always whining about taxes coming out of their paychecks?
Whining about having to pay income taxes by themselves. Could also be that many are self employed.
Ah. I don’t think it’s the taxes themselves, I think it’s the transparency of where the money goes, why the working class is paying far more than million and billionaires.
We carry this country and feel we’re getting shafted in the long run. Free school lunches being removed, little to no support for under privileged, elderly. The latest with the big beautiful bill further destroying the healthcare. USA is being torn apart from the inside out and nothing we can do.
It’s hard to not be upset when you’re paying registration fees, property taxes, state taxes, etc, and run over the same fucking potholes for years for example.
They know how much i make they already have my money… Why the fuck can’t they just send a bill?
Your income is taxed in payroll taxes, income taxes(federal and sometimes state), and then you are taxed for buying things. That is bullshit.
Personal income shouldn’t be taxed unless you make substantially more than the cost of living. Anything over $10m should be taxed at 100% including capital gains and stock awards. If you need more motivation to succeed than $10m a year, you are a lazy parasite.
Where they need to actually tax is businesses. Tax the businesses based on profit and remove the loopholes that allow for tax avoidance abuse schemes that result in a state single digit tax percentage of profits. I would even go so far as to say that the federal taxes on businesses should only apply in interstate and international businesses and only states should be allowed to tax businesses that operate exclusively within the state’s borders.
The effects of that tax plan have obvious consequences and they are all beneficial to the people.
I don’t mind really, just wish it was used for more things that helped society. And it needs to be a little more progressive, though it is the most progressive of the taxes we have here.
My ex MIL, who literally used WIC and welfare when she was a single mom, and leveraged that into a nursing degree, rails against welfare now and doesn’t want her taxes going to that, doesn’t want to pay. Not even in a pull the ladder up after herself way, she just refuses to admit she benefited from it.
Had a similar argument with my dad when he was pulling some shit about handouts. I said mother fucker, you were on WIC when I was growing up, who the fuck are you to deny someone else the same support you had? Never brought it up again.
Because I could pay privately for the services the government gives me, and it’d be cheaper and better.
Like US healthcare?
Nah, I don’t get that here in Brazil
I 100% realize why taxes are needed but they seem like too much for some and way way too little for others. I also have a big problem for the things my tax money would be spent to support right now.
Because the government has all the fucking data it needs to just tell me how much I owe, but no they force me to calculate it myself every year. Or to pay an accountant because it’s a horrible mess of a form.
My main issue is with taxes in general. Well over half of my income (some sources suggest up to 70%) ends up being paid as some kind of tax.
No it doesn’t. Not a single person in the US has 70% of their income going towards taxes dude. You’re on crack throwing that random number out.
Being paid as some kind of tax isn’t income tax only, it’s also e.g. VAT.
Congrats on the US defaultism! I’m not from the US, so stick your crack comment up your arse.
Some mod is going to say ‘no fun allowed’ and remove this comment but I want you to know I read it. And I laughed.
Income tax doesn’t do anything to the 1%. You have unrealized gains, and borrow against your assets? You owe zero tax.
A wealth tax, or income tax on yet unrealized gains, would be better. Of course, that comes with its own set of issues. But, I don’t think they are insurmountable.
Income taxes (and also sales taxes, in most cases) disproportionately impact lower earners. Someone earning minimum wage likely devotes the majority of their income to cost of living essentials. Conversely, someone earning 10x minimum wage will spend a much lower percentage.
The exclusion level generally is set quite a bit below minimum wages, and the a progressive tax doesn’t always fix that, as cost of living/inflation can outpace legislation very quickly.
The other reason that it’s not entirely fair is that the wealthy don’t earn a salary. They earn dividends and do all kinds of things to avoid having an income. Someone who pulls down $1 million in salary either needs an accountant or earns an additional 10x compensation via stock grants, dividends, etc., which are (in most jurisdictions) taxed very differently than income. In the USA, for example, the top tax bracket (federal) for income is 37%, whereas a stock grant held for 1 year after vesting would be taxed at no more than 20% (and I’m grossly oversimplifying).
also low income earners get all their money back in tax returns, you hear this a lot but the bottom 40% of workers don’t pay anything in taxes
it is very progressive the highest income earners so like doctors and lawyers pay the most in income tax
it depends
Jurisdiction is key, of course.
