So, I just finished up our 2009 taxes, we filed jointly. Our Fed tax rate was an eye popping8.41% AGI. I'm outraged. State was a crushing 4.9%. Property taxes was a smothering 3.3%.

This is insane. And these suits in DC talk about raising our taxes to pay for debts? Can't they see we're already being taxed into socialist submission?

3/7/2010 6:09:15 PM

What is your combined annual income if I can ask? (normally I wouldn't ask someone that, except that this topic specifically relates to your finances)

3/7/2010 6:23:26 PM

10.6% fed, 5.8% state (Idaho) and 6.3% state (NC) (for incomes only earned in those states). And for what. I mean, I get nothing for my hard-earned tax payments. What has the government ever done for me!!? Just made each other rich, that's what!

I tell you, after buying a car and motorcycle with cash, new furniture, a new computer and maxing out my Roth IRA and contributing to my 401k, I barely had enough left over to pad my savings account!

3/7/2010 6:35:17 PM

dont forget property tax, car tax, gas tax, sales tax, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, etc...

its not enough to should consider what you owe the government in april.

3/7/2010 6:47:24 PM

Quote :

"What is your combined annual income if I can ask? (normally I wouldn't ask someone that, except that this topic specifically relates to your finances)"

It was pretty close to 70k last year thanks to be unemployed for ~8 months

Quote :

"dont forget property tax, car tax, gas tax, sales tax, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, etc..."

Ah hah. I knew someone (most likely an identified conservative) would be the first to point this out. I included property tax, which makes me wonder if you read it. Tax on our cars was in the .1% range. I won't pay estate taxes for a long time and I don't pay cap gains on my 401k profits until I retire. I paid around $375 in gasoline taxes last year, a killer .5%. And all I get for that is some pretty good considering the situation NC roads. Sales tax, who knows. I know my thread isn't Fed or State specific, but given all the bellyaching over Fed and State tax rates in this country, you'd think I'd be paying double or triple those rates to the Fed and State.



[Edited on March 7, 2010 at 6:58 PM. Reason : .]

3/7/2010 6:48:27 PM

over 50% of your money goes to the govt, welcome to the "evil rich" class.

3/7/2010 7:26:44 PM

Huh?

3/7/2010 7:31:01 PM

Unless you plan on dying each year, you pay estate taxes once. When you die.

3/7/2010 7:54:21 PM

Hey AngryOldMan, what % did you pay in taxes last year?

3/7/2010 8:36:39 PM

Quote :

"Huh?"

3/7/2010 8:41:55 PM

Do you mean for 2008 or 2009?

3/7/2010 8:55:49 PM

^^ he didn't actually read the first post...

3/7/2010 8:59:02 PM

yes, clearly.... i suppose he thinks he's caught AngryOldMan with his pants down

3/7/2010 9:07:44 PM

How much did you pay in caps lock tax?

3/7/2010 9:14:56 PM

I'm especially interested on a republican assessment of this egregious tax situation.

3/7/2010 9:39:25 PM

If you feel you are under taxed, here is the form to pay the rest you feel you should have paid:
https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFormId=23779454

That said, quite a bit of my own outrage at the tax system has to do not with the rates, which are too high, but with allowed exemptions. The government uses the tax code to subsidize their friends and shift the tax bills to everyone else. I suspect much of your income was written off thanks to interest on your mortgage, donations to religious or political organizations, etc. Why should other tax payers pay to cover the hole left by your tax deductions? Also, I suspect you probably wrote a lot off thanks to your losses in the stock market. Correct me if I'm wrong.

If we eliminated all tax deductions, then tax rates could be lowered even more. Although you might pay more in taxes due to the shift, your neighbor which is a renter atheist that believes only in direct charity would find himself paying less in taxes.

3/7/2010 9:53:02 PM

Quote :

"And these suits in DC talk about raising our taxes to pay for debts? Can't they see we're already being taxed into socialist submission?"

You could be paying a lot more in taxes. They've gone down over the past few years. Pick one, bitch about the taxes, or bitch about the debt.

Quote :

"And for what. I mean, I get nothing for my hard-earned tax payments. What has the government ever done for me!!? Just made each other rich, that's what!"

Yeah, we'd have the greatest country in the world without anyone having to contribute any money.

Quote :

"I tell you, after buying a car and motorcycle with cash, new furniture, a new computer and maxing out my Roth IRA and contributing to my 401k, I barely had enough left over to pad my savings account!"

Aw shit man. That sounds rough, elie wiesel ain't got shit on you! Not being able to have tons of money to put in savings after buying tones of shit the rest of the world couldn't dream of having, now that's real suffering.

Quote :

"I'm especially interested on a republican assessment of this egregious tax situation."

Well that's easy. All you need to know is whether or not the republicans are in power at the time. If they are, then they are pissed as hell about how high taxes are. If they are not, then they are focused on some other stupid thing and quietly raising taxes or debt for said thing.

Quote :

"I suspect much of your income was written off thanks to interest on your mortgage"

In all fairness, buying a home and paying a mortgage is good for the economy.

[Edited on March 7, 2010 at 10:11 PM. Reason : ]

3/7/2010 10:07:25 PM

Quote :

"I suspect much of your income was written off thanks to interest on your mortgage, donations to religious or political organizations, etc. Why should other tax payers pay to cover the hole left by your tax deductions?"

About half of my deduction was mortgage interest. The other was 401k contribution. If we removed both of those deductions, my effective rate goes up to a nasty ~13% for Fed taxes. I'd imagine state would rise in a comparable ratio.

So, we're talking around 25% IF those were removed. I guess if I could buy a home at the resulting after removal tax subsidy rate (or if my mortgage could be lowered commensurately) then I'd be fine with that.

But these deductions have been in place for long enough that the distortions they have on the market can simply be ignored and we can look at the actual rate as it is with them...which is low as fuck for a middle class income.

Quote :

"your neighbor which is a renter"

...doesn't pay for the A/C when it blows up, the fridge when it dies, the paint that it needs, the toilet when it breaks, etc.


[Edited on March 7, 2010 at 10:15 PM. Reason : .]

3/7/2010 10:13:40 PM

I have roads, a fire department, and a police force. Waaaaah.

3/7/2010 10:34:41 PM

seems like too many people's sarcasm detectors are broken ITT

3/7/2010 10:52:16 PM

But the waahmbulance is running at full speed.

3/7/2010 10:57:46 PM

Quote :

"But these deductions have been in place for long enough that the distortions they have on the market can simply be ignored and we can look at the actual rate as it is with them...which is low as fuck for a middle class income."

Only if you are in a class of people prone to receive them as tax deductions. If you do not, then your rate is not low as fuck for a middle class income. Allowing some to deduct their savings because they go into a 401k but not allowing others because their savings go into a CD is immoral. The goal of a just society should be equality before the law. Jacking up tax rates would just make the system even more unequal, as it would even further increase the value of your tax deductions.

Quote :

"...doesn't pay for the A/C when it blows up, the fridge when it dies, the paint that it needs, the toilet when it breaks, etc."

But they do pay the taxes which you are not. Making it easy for many or even most to cheaply engage in tax avoidance makes the tax code immoral because of the many that cannot.

3/7/2010 10:58:45 PM

Quote :

"Allowing some to deduct their savings because they go into a 401k but not allowing others because their savings go into a CD is immoral."

Huh? Those people are more than free to contribute to an IRA over a CD. If they don't choose to do that then that is their own fault, as a Libertarian I'm surprised you're attempting to defend the ignorant.

Quote :

"But they do pay the taxes which you are not."

They pay property tax on property they don't own? Or are you going to tell me this is passed passed on to the renter.

3/7/2010 11:02:25 PM

Well super! Everyone is happy with their taxes. The gov't is taking just the right amount away from us.

Things should run swimmingly for democrats this November.

3/7/2010 11:04:13 PM

Whats wrong dogg, I took away your "taxes are high argument" so you have nothing to say here?

3/7/2010 11:05:34 PM

• The top 20% of earners pay 70% of all federal taxes.
• The bottom 90% of households pay only 45%.

I'm still a bit miffed at that.


"The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." – Will Rogers

3/7/2010 11:37:25 PM

^ your numbers don't add up

the next-to-top 10% pays more than 15% .

And what would be the optimal break down to yoU?

3/7/2010 11:43:56 PM

^^^ Property taxes often do pass on to the renter. And I disagree with you. I find it wrong for a single mother of two supporting her extended family with no room for savings and a job that requires her to relocate too often to own a home to be paying perhaps twice the tax rate you are. It is wrong to more heavily tax the lazy, the stupid, the black, the unlucky, the single, the gay, whatever. It is a principle that we should all be treated equally by the IRS regardless of our lifestyle choices.

It seems you place no value in equality of law. It is an opinion I guess. You started this thread as a plea to raise tax rates, I guess because you enjoy making life worse for others not endowed by God with your level of tax deduction. So be it. Just understand what a poor opinion I have of you.

Although I am curious: where did you get the idea that libertarians dislike the ignorant? Or the idiocy to believe that ignorance is the only possible barrier to 401k savings?

3/7/2010 11:48:19 PM

I don't think the point of this thread is that we should raise taxes...

And I don't see where he, even implicitly, supports poor women with kids and a harsh job to pay more taxes.

And if you've ever read about any of Ayn Rand's personal writings, it's clear that she has a contempt for the ignorant, and just broader Libertarian ideology implies a contempt for the ignorant too (note that the "ignorant" would encompass most of society).

3/7/2010 11:51:51 PM

Quote :

"You could be paying a lot more in taxes. They've gone down over the past few years. Pick one, bitch about the taxes, or bitch about the debt."

Where does "Bitch about spending" play into this equation?

3/7/2010 11:55:04 PM

I have read Ayn Rand, she thought libertarians were ignorant saps, so you may be onto something with objectivists.

As to the second part of your statement, even if it were true that libertarians thought most people were ignorant, it does not follow that they would be happy when the government punished them for it.

Moron, Decoding the OP sarcasm about how high his taxes are, the implication being that the targets of his mockery are wrong and that taxes are actually too low. He then defends the current inequality built into the tax code on the basis that it only punishes the ignorant and that libertarians should somehow be happy with this. Well, he wants higher taxes for himself, but to keep the maze of tax code, so that only leaves higher tax rates.

[Edited on March 7, 2010 at 11:59 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/7/2010 11:56:00 PM

Libertarians aren't happy with the government, period.

But they are happy when the "hand of the market" punishes the ignorant.

3/7/2010 11:58:58 PM

^ facts not in evidence. I, being a libertarian, believe less government would serve the interests of the ignorant better than more government would.

3/8/2010 12:02:04 AM

... because history is rife with businesses standing up, rather than preying on, the ignorant.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 12:08 AM. Reason : ]

3/8/2010 12:06:57 AM

If we were still adhering to an legitimate budget, taxes would need to be much higher. Spending has more than doubled in the past decade, but it's not as if the federal government hiked taxes to pay for it. The thing that should concern you is that all of this extravagant spending is going to have to be paid for somehow. We've been sold a bill of goods (while being told it was all for free or that "lowering taxes" would pay for the difference), and it's for a lot more money than we can ever hope to gather through traditional means. It's a deceptive form of taxation, and the politicians love it.

Of course, the taxes that are actually levied are bullshit too. I don't think you're including FICA taxes. Then again, I might not even refer to SS/Medicare as a tax. It's more like forced charity, because at least with a tax you usually see some kind of return on your money.

It's funny how whenever someone brings up high taxes, someone else immediately makes the point that we get police/fire/schools from taxes, as if that justifies the entire tax amount and all the government money that goes to foreigners, bureaucracy, war, etc.

3/8/2010 12:16:09 AM

^^...yes it is. According to economic theories of marginal rationality, even if only 10% of your customers are sentient human beings capable of recognizing bad behavior when they see it, you will still go bankrupt in the fact of competition.

That said, people are not as stupid as you like to believe they are. I guess elitist thinking is in vogue among the internet crowd. But I am not a believer. People clearly specialize and seek their own interests, and therefore perceive each other as ignorant when they meet, but it doesn't mean they all have brain damage.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 12:21 AM. Reason : ^]

3/8/2010 12:21:12 AM

Quote :

"It's funny how whenever someone brings up high taxes, someone else immediately makes the point that we get police/fire/schools from taxes, as if that justifies the entire tax amount and all the government money that goes to foreigners, bureaucracy, war, etc. "

Umm, no. This is not how this works.

When someone brings up that we should have NO taxes, that's when people point out the police/fire/whatever.

I think you'll find that the majority of people here believe the gov. should be paying down the debt, and part of doing this involves cutting spending.

The debates though are on what to cut, and on who to raise taxes on.

People like EarthDogg seem to think the rich should never have their taxes raised.

And LoneSnark seems to be advocating that the poor should keep their taxes low.

And both of those guys claim to be Libertarians.

Quote :

"That said, people are not as stupid as you like to believe they are. I guess elitist thinking is in vogue among the internet crowd. But I am not a believer. People clearly specialize and seek their own interests, and therefore perceive each other as ignorant when they meet, but it doesn't mean they all have brain damage. "

lol. I didn't say that i think people are dumb. I said that Libertarians hate the ignorant, but that under their thinking, most people would be classified as ignorant (and in a literal sense this is true, noting that ignorant != dumb).

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 12:23 AM. Reason : ]

3/8/2010 12:22:30 AM

Quote :

"The top 20% of earners pay 70% of all federal taxes. "

well considering the top 25% of earners make almost 70% of the income, then it stands to reason they'd be paying most of the taxes, now wouldn't it?

Quote :

"I'm still a bit miffed at that. "

gee, if only these people had the ability to speak for and defend themselves....

3/8/2010 12:31:24 AM

Quote :

"I said that Libertarians hate the ignorant, but that under their thinking, most people would be classified as ignorant"

I don't see it. Most libertarian literature I read speaks of public choice theory and the belief that voters know what they want and that in fact they are getting it. Education is not the problem, the problem is a lack of religion. Specifically, most of the citizenry has abandoned the church of liberty. For whatever reason, I doubt they did so out of ignorance. If anything, it was ignorance that allowed the church of liberty to have so many followers as long as it did.

3/8/2010 12:38:26 AM

Quote :

"Libertarians aren't happy with the government, period. But they are happy when the "hand of the market" punishes the ignorant."

I'm not happy about anything like that. The "punishment" has to be there, otherwise people aren't going to behave rationally. People have to know that bad investments will cause them to lose money, while good investments will be rewarding. The problem comes about when we try to remove the consequences that are naturally present in any economy and foolishly believe that there we be no bad effects.

Quote :

"Umm, no. This is not how this works. When someone brings up that we should have NO taxes, that's when people point out the police/fire/whatever."

How many people are really arguing for no taxes? Without taxes, the government can't even do what the constitution says it has to do.

Quote :

"I think you'll find that the majority of people here believe the gov. should be paying down the debt, and part of doing this involves cutting spending. The debates though are on what to cut, and on who to raise taxes on."

People talk about paying down the debt and cutting spending, but it never translates into action. We just get increased spending. Of course, the idea of us paying down our current debt is completely ludicrous. We're not paying that shit. We'd need to run trillion dollar surpluses for a couple decades. That would only be possible if we had very high taxes and very low spending. How likely is that, honestly? This debt is going to be paid for with inflation, or we're going to default on it. Either would cause the standard of living to go down substantially, I think.

Quote :

"lol. I didn't say that i think people are dumb. I said that Libertarians hate the ignorant, but that under their thinking, most people would be classified as ignorant (and in a literal sense this is true, noting that ignorant != dumb)."

I don't hate the ignorant, but I do accept that they are ignorant. That's reality. A good chunk of the population doesn't give two shits about history, the government, or politics. It's just not something they see as important. The problem with the ignorant is that they're easily manipulated. If Senator Johnson wants to promise them free stuff, they'll vote for him. That's why it's crucial that we have a constitution that restrains the government. Otherwise, it's pointless. If politicians can just do what they feel is right, and bend to the will of their constituents, there's no limit to what the government can do. What we have now is mob rule.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 12:53 AM. Reason : ]

3/8/2010 12:52:47 AM

I don't see how anyone can argue that the American public isn't ignorant of many, many things, including the basics of our government and Constitution.

This doesn't mean the people are stupid, but they clearly lack critical knowledge (i.e. are ignorant of) required to make informed decisions about policy.

3/8/2010 12:54:19 AM

^^^ You're going to have to explain what you mean by "church of liberty."

Quote :

"Most libertarian literature I read speaks of public choice theory and the belief that voters know what they want and that in fact they are getting it."

Right. And so in the Libertarian world, poor people are poor because if their ignorant/dumb choices, and thus deserve no sympathy of help from society, because they chose that lot.

Quote :

"I don't hate the ignorant, but I do accept that they are ignorant. That's reality. A good chunk of the population doesn't give two shits about history, the government, or politics. It's just not something they see as important. The problem with the ignorant is that they're easily manipulated. If Senator Johnson wants to promise them free stuff, they'll vote for him. That's why it's crucial that we have a constitution that restrains the government. Otherwise, it's pointless. If politicians can just do what they feel is right, and bend to the will of their constituents, there's no limit to what the government can do. What we have now is mob rule. "

This is true. But the problem is that government has power because we gave it power, but we also give other entities power. One of those entities are the large businesses (like banks, walmart, auto companies, the church, or any entity that has a lot of money -- and thus power and influence), and historically they have been more egregious in manipulating the ignorant than the government. Government was created in fact to check the power of those groups.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 12:59 AM. Reason : ]

3/8/2010 12:55:09 AM

So you're saying only 16.61% of your income was extorted from you this year before factoring in sales tax, inflation, and all of the other various taxes that increase your cost of living on a daily basis? How wonderful. I guess we should be thankful that our benevolent leaders are so gracious as to leave us with as much as they do.

3/8/2010 12:59:48 AM

Quote :

"How many people are really arguing for no taxes? Without taxes, the government can't even do what the constitution says it has to do. "

The tea-partyers and idiots like ^

3/8/2010 1:02:57 AM

Quote :

"You're going to have to explain what you mean by "church of liberty.""

Is it a religious belief in the fundamental value of human liberty. It turns out, contrary to what the founding fathers believed, it is not "self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." There are other ways you can organize a society and there is no scientific way to prove one is best. Yes, Liberty may cut down on Tyranny, but it is not obvious that a little Tyranny is a bad thing when it alleviates the plight of the poor. That is, unless you are a follower of the church of liberty, as Thomas Jefferson was, and any quantity of suffering is justified in the name of Liberty.

Quote :

"And so in the Libertarian world, poor people are poor because if their ignorant/dumb choices, and thus deserve no sympathy of help from society, because they chose that lot."

Not at all. I am not ignorant, I have read the statistics. The vast majority of America's poor are recent immigrants. They did not choose to be born in another country, it was thrust upon them. So the "they deserve it" argument fails. The question is what do you do about it. And any believer in the church of liberty would agree that Liberty should dominate in the face of income inequality, whatever the cause.

3/8/2010 1:29:37 AM

They took uurrr LIBERTYYYYY

3/8/2010 1:33:10 AM

Quote :

"Not at all. I am not ignorant, I have read the statistics. The vast majority of America's poor are recent immigrants. They did not choose to be born in another country, it was thrust upon them. So the "they deserve it" argument fails. The question is what do you do about it. And any believer in the church of liberty would agree that Liberty should dominate in the face of income inequality, whatever the cause. "

Blacks and hispanics have similar rates of poverty.

The idea that liberty should dominate makes sense in your scenario for those particular type of immigrants, but it doesn't make sense in the case of black americans, who are poor because of the legacies of intentional, purposeful actions by other citizens. This problem will eventually fix itself under your system, but there's no reason to let more generations suffer longer than they have to, when intentional actions can shorten the time for things to correct themselves.

3/8/2010 1:43:18 AM

Quote :

"I find it wrong for a single mother of two supporting her extended family with no room for savings and a job that requires her to relocate too often to own a home to be paying perhaps twice the tax rate you are."

Did you even compute what her Fed tax burden would be or do you assume it would be higher just to make a point? I don't have children so why should she get the benefit of those tax credits that I don't get? I'm guessing if she makes the same AGI that we did last year her effective rate might be 150% what mine is even if we exclude the idea that she can't sock as much away into an IRA as I can because she has to pay for children. Of course, I'm not getting the benefit (non monetary) of kids that she is, so if tax rates were really her concern then she should have considered that before having children.

Quote :

"It is wrong to more heavily tax the lazy, the stupid, the black, the unlucky, the single, the gay, whatever. It is a principle that we should all be treated equally by the IRS regardless of our lifestyle choices. "

With the exception of the gays (though this is changing) those people are being treated equally. The lazy can start being productive, the stupid can get an education, the single can get married - and I'm not really sure where black people fit in your argument - if they want the tax benefits that we as a society have decided we want. The law is nothing more than an extension of what the Republic wanted. Feel free to join whichever group necessary and challenge the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the tax code and get the system overturned.



[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 6:34 AM. Reason : .]

3/8/2010 6:16:41 AM

Quote :

"well considering the top 25% of earners make almost 70% of the income, then it stands to reason they'd be paying most of the taxes, now wouldn't it? "

Quote :

" Congressional Budget Office data, 2005 Top 1% Share of Federal Income Taxes: 39% Share of Total Pre-tax Income: 18% Top 5% Share of Federal Income Taxes: 61% Share of Total Pre-tax Income: 31% Top 20% Share of Federal Income Taxes: 86.3% Share of Total Pre-tax Income: 55% Source: Congressional Budget Office"

The top 20% are paying much more than their "fair" share. Why do we hold in such disdain the very people who are paying most of the bills? Obama and his crew want to raise taxes on this group even more..claiming they need to pay their "fair" share.

Quote :

"But the problem is that government has power because we gave it power, but we also give other entities power. One of those entities are the large businesses"

We give the business money, only because it offers a product or service that we want. We ALLOW politicians to gain more power by letting them give businesses extra privilages in exchange for donations. The key is to stop letting politicians pick winners and losers.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 9:29 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 9:30 AM. Reason : ..]

3/8/2010 9:24:25 AM

Quote :

"FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS"

3/8/2010 9:27:03 AM