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(NPR) Scary So how much do we really pay in taxes? Even the left's heavyweight can't spin this one   (npr.org) divider line 703
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35740 clicks; posted to Main » on 09 Sep 2010 at 12:44 AM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»   |    Get this fabulous T-Shirt and impress the methane out of your friends! shirt it!



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2010-09-08 06:19:39 PM
How else do you plan to take care of externalities, via magic?

/or 'libertarian economics', as it were
//a.k.a. 'magic' or 'making sh*t up out of whole cloth'
///CUT TACKZIZ, PEOPLE WILL CHARITEE EVERYTHING
 
2010-09-08 06:20:24 PM
The horror:
www.npr.org
 
2010-09-08 06:35:11 PM
But we get so much for it!!!!
 
2010-09-08 06:35:59 PM
Enough to ensure that we have a style of life where the roads work, crime isn't out of control, and I can drink the water out of my tap?

Well, we need a new water treatment plant. Anyone spare $43 million?
 
2010-09-08 06:36:23 PM
Oh my Lord! You mean a couple with two successful careers (they're both engineers!) pay a whopping 24.1% of their income in taxes -- including income, property, sales, payroll, etc.! That's like almost a quarter! Clearly, their finances are being unreasonably hobbled by this unbearable burden. They should go Galt and see how we like it*!

After all, apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order (and a public pensions system and national defense)... what have the Romans gubmint done for them?


* No offense meant to the couple in question, just those who would construe their 24% tax burden as clearly outrageous.
 
2010-09-08 06:38:54 PM
That little sliver for alcohol taxes? That ain't right, at least for me.
 
2010-09-08 06:43:45 PM
Earguy: That little sliver for alcohol taxes? That ain't right, at least for me.

You're right, including that means 73.2% of my income goes to taxes. Goddamn you George Washington!
 
2010-09-08 06:45:01 PM
Lets see, family of three making less than 60k. Pretty sad engineers.
 
2010-09-08 06:52:32 PM
I was expecting some scary chart to show 60% or something.

24.1% That's it? Wow, that's awesome. The heavyweights on the left should be shouting this from the rooftops.
 
2010-09-08 06:54:21 PM
bojon: Lets see, family of three making less than 60k. Pretty sad engineers.

The article doesn't mention their total income, but we can approximate it from the graphs:

Gas tax is quoted as ~$700 per year.
Gas tax is about one-tenth of the "other tax" category, judging by the width of the bar.
This implies their total "other tax" is about $7,000 per year.
The "other tax" category is stated as 5.4% of income.
Their household income is thus about $7000/0.054 = $130,000.

For a couple of engineers in their mid-20s, that's respectable, if not awesome.
 
2010-09-08 06:57:51 PM
bojon: Lets see, family of three making less than 60k. Pretty sad engineers.

yeah, really. I hardly passed high school and make more than that.
 
2010-09-08 06:59:18 PM
130k and they pay 18.7%. I have doubts. They should be 24% or more.
 
2010-09-08 07:01:05 PM
bojon: 130k and they pay 18.7%. I have doubts. They should be 24% or more.

They have a kid and a mortgage, probably on a rather expensive house relative to their income levels. Both give you massive deductions on your 1040. They may have other write-offs as well. I can totally believe these figures.
 
2010-09-08 07:03:44 PM
SusanIvanova: a mortgage, probably on a rather expensive house relative to their income levels.

It would have to be an awfully expensive mortgage if that were the big factor there. Unless I'm wrong, you can only write off the interest, so you'd have to pay $10,000 (is that still the standard deduction for joint filing?) in interest alone in order for it to be worth itemizing, unless you had lots of other things to make it worthwhile.
 
2010-09-08 07:07:53 PM
This will get out of hand quickly as I believe we are using different numbers and using given numbers that reflect the writers bias, one way or the other.
 
2010-09-08 07:09:20 PM
nekom: It would have to be an awfully expensive mortgage if that were the big factor there. Unless I'm wrong, you can only write off the interest, so you'd have to pay $10,000 (is that still the standard deduction for joint filing?) in interest alone in order for it to be worth itemizing, unless you had lots of other things to make it worthwhile.

$10,000 in interest is trivially easy to achieve. With a 5% rate, that's a $200,000 loan balance. They own a home in Connecticut. The old-school three-times-your-income and 20% down mortgage would have them at $312,000 in loans (assuming they bought recently, what with being 26 and all) -- $15,600 per year in interest, and old-school mortgages like that are a thing of the distant past these days. They may well be paying $25,000 or more annually in mortgage interest.
 
2010-09-08 07:10:50 PM
SusanIvanova: With a 5% rate

If you can get a 5% rate outside of the market, you've either got the best bank in the world or access to a time machine.
 
2010-09-08 07:13:25 PM
IRAs or SS, child college fund, insurance? Looks bogus on the face of it. I'm gone.
 
2010-09-08 07:45:09 PM
SusanIvanova: $10,000 in interest is trivially easy to achieve. With a 5% rate, that's a $200,000 loan balance. They own a home in Connecticut. The old-school three-times-your-income and 20% down mortgage would have them at $312,000 in loans (assuming they bought recently, what with being 26 and all) -- $15,600 per year in interest, and old-school mortgages like that are a thing of the distant past these days. They may well be paying $25,000 or more annually in mortgage interest.

That's nuts. I guess I'm just kind of spoiled with my reasonable $37,500 home purchase. Hell my mortgage doesn't hit 10K annually even with the principal included, much less the interest.
 
2010-09-08 07:45:46 PM
bojon: 130k and they pay 18.7%. I have doubts. They should be 24% or more.

Link (new window)
 
2010-09-08 07:52:29 PM
bojon: 130k and they pay 18.7%. I have doubts. They should be 24% or more.

No, that's right. Deductions are absolutely out of control. The actual top rate is 36%, but if you make more than $250,000 and you're paying more than about 20% or so, you have a bad accountant. The only people who end up paying close to their effective rates are the lower middle class.

But the rich pay too much! Tax cuts fix everything!
 
2010-09-08 07:55:06 PM
bojon: 130k and they pay 18.7%. I have doubts. They should be 24% or more.

Married filling jointly, 130,000 income, one kid age 3, with $15,000 in mortgage interest. Figured $4,000 for real estate tax.

They pay $16,588 in income tax, or 13%.

Link (new window)
 
2010-09-08 07:56:50 PM
Hender: SusanIvanova: With a 5% rate

If you can get a 5% rate outside of the market, you've either got the best bank in the world or access to a time machine.


Huh?
 
2010-09-08 08:03:02 PM
nekom: That's nuts. I guess I'm just kind of spoiled with my reasonable $37,500 home purchase. Hell my mortgage doesn't hit 10K annually even with the principal included, much less the interest.

Median income in their town of Stratford, CT (as of 2008) was about $70k, they make almost twice that. Median home price (as of 2010) is $230k, down from $300k two years prior. If they're following the crowd, they've probably got a $400k loan, maybe more, depending on when they bought and what their terms are. Which is insane, but does quite effectively lower their tax bill.

/household income of $190k
//we rent
///because buying at current prices is insane
 
2010-09-08 08:14:33 PM
For the "services" we've been getting - trickle down economics, offshoring middle class jobs, importing H1Bs - I'd say anyone making less than $250k a year should have objected, oh, I don't know, maybe about 30 FRIGGING YEARS AGO.

But it's never too late to start.
 
2010-09-08 08:18:24 PM
Infrastructure and subsidies (such as medicare and unemployment) and militaries and etc etc cost money.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
 
2010-09-08 08:32:12 PM
biatching about the second lowest tax rate (new window) in the 1st World and the one of the lowest marginal tax rates in the U.S. in 80+ years?

Go piss up a rope, you deluded, entitled misanthropes. To live in a civilization that provides you with enough comfort to sit around on your ass biatching about tax rates means someone has to actually pay taxes.
 
2010-09-08 08:36:43 PM
I think the more important story here is that yet again NPR is carrying Republican water. They have basically zero credibility anymore as they only spend time spouting GOP talking points in between reviewing shiatty hipster bands.
 
2010-09-08 09:07:18 PM
Wage slaves also tend to forget (or are ignorant of the fact) that their charitable employers also pay the IRS on the employee's behalf approximately as much money as the employee does. So that's money that could have been paid to you in higher wages, benefits, etc but instead goes to the federal government.
 
2010-09-08 09:50:37 PM
jaylectricity: Wage slaves also tend to forget (or are ignorant of the fact) that their charitable employers also pay the IRS on the employee's behalf approximately as much money as the employee does. So that's money that could have been paid to you in higher wages, benefits, etc but instead goes to the federal government.

Oh yeah, that's right- wage slaves are ALWAYS fairly compensated by their corporations.... If it wasn't for minimum wage, they would pay nothing.
 
2010-09-08 10:10:27 PM
SusanIvanova: Oh my Lord! You mean a couple with two successful careers (they're both engineers!) pay a whopping 24.1% of their income in taxes -- including income, property, sales, payroll, etc.! That's like almost a quarter! Clearly, their finances are being unreasonably hobbled by this unbearable burden. They should go Galt and see how we like it*!

That's it, I'm going to the grocery store and I'm buying up all the soup and bleach! Enjoy the Apocalypse losers!
 
2010-09-08 10:11:28 PM
jaylectricity: Wage slaves also tend to forget (or are ignorant of the fact) that their charitable employers also pay the IRS on the employee's behalf approximately as much money as the employee does. So that's money that could have been paid to you in higher wages, benefits, etc but instead goes to the federal government.

You know, if there is one thing I've learned over my adult life, it's that corporations will never pass the savings on to me.
 
2010-09-08 10:11:50 PM
I can't wait for the accompanying article tomorrow biatching about the deficit... f'n retards spinning the same BS on a 2 or 3 day roatation
 
2010-09-08 10:17:23 PM
*snerk* 24% taxes? Good freakin' lord! That's piddly crap in terms of what we get back for it:

Decent transportation network
drinkable water from the tap
trash removal, etc.
SS is essentially a pension
Sizable military
Police/fire/medical emergency services
Fairly reliable food sources that aren't going to kill people outright
Education

All of that costs money and it's not cheap.

Yes, some of it IS crap - sin taxes are the worst thought out tax there is, but it's a "feel good" tax for those putting it forward.

So everyone screaming about how taxes are "too high" - where would you cut taxes from? And how would you pay for the services that are rendered?
 
2010-09-08 10:25:53 PM
SpaceyCat: Sizable military

Which has its own welfare built right into it for the enlisted folk.
 
2010-09-08 10:31:31 PM
SpaceyCat: trash removal, etc.

Not to nitpick, but my taxes do NOT pay for my garbage removal, I have to pay a private company for that. On all other counts, however, your point remains valid.
 
2010-09-08 11:11:14 PM
impaler: Hender: SusanIvanova: With a 5% rate

If you can get a 5% rate outside of the market, you've either got the best bank in the world or access to a time machine.

Huh?


OK, I'll rephrase.

"If you can get a 5% return on an investment anywhere other than the stock market or a mutual fund, you've either got the best bank in the world or access to a time machine."

I haven't gotten a 5% return in a savings account or a CD in about 6 years.
 
2010-09-08 11:16:54 PM
These taxes, they're terrible. If I didn't have to pay so much in taxes, I wouldn't have to be on welfare.
 
2010-09-08 11:26:16 PM
Hender: I haven't gotten a 5% return in a savings account or a CD in about 6 years.

I believe he was referring to the mortgage rate, not return on investment.
 
2010-09-08 11:29:20 PM
Texian: biatching about the second lowest tax rate (new window) in the 1st World and the one of the lowest marginal tax rates in the U.S. in 80+ years?

Go piss up a rope, you deluded, entitled misanthropes. To live in a civilization that provides you with enough comfort to sit around on your ass biatching about tax rates means someone has to actually pay taxes.


So much this. I really wish more Americans would live abroad for a while, travel even, and see how much people pay in other countries. Better yet, they can see what nice things higher tax rates can get you.
 
2010-09-08 11:33:32 PM
coco ebert: So much this. I really wish more Americans would live abroad for a while, travel even, and see how much people pay in other countries. Better yet, they can see what nice things higher tax rates can get you.

This is why we can't have nice things.
 
2010-09-08 11:47:00 PM
farm3.static.flickr.com
Don't remember who Boobiesed that, but I know I got it at fark.
 
2010-09-09 12:08:23 AM
Texian: second lowest tax rate

Bested by Switzerland AGAIN! GRAAAH!
 
2010-09-09 12:11:03 AM
filter pwned. time for bed.
 
2010-09-09 12:21:21 AM
coco ebert: Texian: biatching about the second lowest tax rate (new window) in the 1st World and the one of the lowest marginal tax rates in the U.S. in 80+ years?

Go piss up a rope, you deluded, entitled misanthropes. To live in a civilization that provides you with enough comfort to sit around on your ass biatching about tax rates means someone has to actually pay taxes.

So much this. I really wish more Americans would live abroad for a while, travel even, and see how much people pay in other countries. Better yet, they can see what nice things higher tax rates can get you.


No, no, no. Traveling to other countries is elitist and un-American. Like paying for R&D, education, and infrastructure and regulating private industry for the public good.
 
2010-09-09 12:39:53 AM
coco ebert: So much this. I really wish more Americans would live abroad for a while, travel even, and see how much people pay in other countries. Better yet, they can see what nice things higher tax rates can get you.

Oh, Americans travel.
 
2010-09-09 12:46:55 AM
How much do we get for what we pay is the real question. Not e-farking-nough is the short answer.
 
2010-09-09 12:47:54 AM
Compared to what and when?
 
2010-09-09 12:48:33 AM
no fat baby tax?
 
2010-09-09 12:48:39 AM
Enough with the trolltastic headlines, okay?
 
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