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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.
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.
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).
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.
Most Americans opt to have their employer take the taxes out and send them to the government for them. But its not required, we can choose to receive all of our pay and take responsibility for sending the government their cut ourselves. Its a PITA, but some opt to put their taxes in an account to earn interest for a year before paying the government. They view paying monthly as "giving the government a free loan."
When you have your employer do it for you, your pay stub breaks down the amount you started with and how much was taken out for each tax. We can see what we are paying in tax on every paycheck which is why so many Americans complain about it.
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.
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.
They know how much i make they already have my money.. Why the fuck can't they just send a bill?
In theory, it's not the most economically efficient. We want people to work, and taxing labor decreases the incentive to work. However, there isn't any viable alternative given the current circumstances. Labor creates all value in society and you can't easily hide labor off shore (though I guess that's what happened with globalization and China).
One should understand that income tax should be a tax on the consumption of labor (just as a tariff is a tax paid by the importer/consumer). Right-wing politicians have made the employee pay the income tax (to decrease acceptance of the system), but it should always be the employer that pays the tax.
If we start to call income tax "labor VAT" or something similar, that will probably solve a lot of misunderstandings.
People are self centered, and don't bother to take a deeper look at what is happening.
They get their paycheck and see that the gubment took 24% of their money and feel like they've been robbed.
At no point do they consider the years they spent in public school, or the roads they use to drive to work, or the ever present emergency services that will be available when they are needed.
You had me until the emergency services comment
Yeah. I'm with you on all of that, but in many places that's not the situation.
Or that those things should be paid entirely out of business and top 10% taxes because they can afford it. Apparently. 👆
Obviously I agree that the rich should pay more in taxes that is common sense, but the idea we could run an economy without taxing anyone deemed "middle class" is a fantasy.
People love the European welfare state, here is the thing European taxation is way less progressive people of all income brackets pay more in taxes, I am not saying that is wrong but the fact is most Americans would hate it.
In the nordics it is a cultural assumption that everyone pays, yes even poor people.
European income tax rates are way flatter with the top income level kicking in earlier.
but the idea we could run an economy without taxing anyone deemed "middle class" is a fantasy
No it isn't, the US was like that. They taxed everyone to fund a war then put it back, then did it again but didn't put it back because they keep the money and here we are.
Idk about you but if the government took 24% of my money I'd be ecstatic, currently it's much closer to 55-60%, a too-big percentage of which goes on privatising profit and nationalising losses.
Only 24 percent? What the fuck are they whining about?
I looked at my paycheck (US) vs. one of our Swedish colleagues when I was doing our payroll, and yes, the tax was about 45%, my federal withholding is much less but once you add in the deductions for 401k (unsecured pension scheme) and health insurance (that doesn't cover anything except annual wellness until we pay in 8,000 USD) and social security (the fed pension being paid now to old people, and their healthcare) my deductions also leave about 55% of my pay for net pay.
The part I object to most in terms of cost there is the healthcare - my deductions may mirror the Swede but I don't think they also have to cover the first 8k of cost out of pocket.
(Edit - it was Sweden not Denmark)
Exactly
Trust me if the government had to make up the difference from consumption taxes most people would lose more money to that then income tax, since income tax is predictable it can be optimized better while consumption tax has inherent variance so you have to set it high to be safe.
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.
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.
A thing many people don’t understand about American political discourse is that much of our anti-tax extremism is not really to do with taxes but rather a reaction to the Civil Rights movement. Overt racial animus became untenable in the 1970s so politicians looking to agitate white suburban voters began to use “Taxpayers” as a synonym for white people and “Wellfare recipients” to mean non-white people. From this perspective, the anti-tax agenda can be understood more as a white supremacist project than any objection to the concept of taxation. It’s about who gets what, not really about the how.
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.
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.
Gragh kill mammoth. Tax makes Gragh have less mammoth. Gragh not sick, Gragh no need whichdoctor.
I don't hate it. I think it's one of the better taxes.
People hate it because it feels like a bait-and-switch, the difference between salary and take-home pay. They also hate it because it comes with paperwork.
One thing I hate about it is like. Okay child support as an example. If you make 100, 000 a year before taxes they will just take out 17,000 for child support. But your take home would be significantly less. Making that 17% income steal feel more like 40%.
I hate how every single financial aid or housing or anything that requires an income to apply for always uses before tax gross income. If you want buy a house they use gross income.
If you take home shit money and you want federal or state assistance, "sorry for gross income you make too much to get any sort of financial aid. Not our fault landlords hike up rent. Just buy a house"
Ok but 17k for a kid is a bargain.
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.
People will go to the library to Google about when trump will remove income and federal taxes screaming that it's a waste of their money, not knowing that the library a federal building paid for by their taxes.
I don't get it either. The US is down here on the lower end for how much we pay into taxes. We just get hardly any benefits from it since it all goes to our military. But on average we only pay a relatively small percentage compared to the rest of the world.
I'll put my 2 cents in though. I'd gladly pay a higher tax percentage to save $800 a month for health insurance that doesn't even work until I spend $7500 first.
Fucking deductibles. I just hit my $3500 on June 30th.
Our year reset on July 1st.
Because big corporations tell us what we like and don't like. People who can toss 90% of their income into stocks/investments etc... that can be used to make more money, would rather have as much as possible. Hence they preffer the costs to go onto when you are purchasing things. While poorer people obviously are spending most of their money on things.
In short it's a way to keep taxes lower for people making a good amount of money, Especially makes things better for those who can invest and multiply their money.
In the US, it’s because it mainly goes to the bloated military budget instead of helpful social services, schools and infrastructure, and when we try to ask for those things, we are called greedy and lazy socialists.
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).