I live in a country that's one of the highest taxed in the world, the Netherlands, paying up to 51.75% tax on my earnings. And I actually think it's fair and would not lobby for lower tax rates.
It's probably because of how taxes and the government works is different in many ways to the US:
1. You feel it on your own wallet how your tax is spent and redistributed. Even though I pay a large amount in tax, being a high earner, I also get support from the government, paid monthly, for childcare and mortgage interests. Also, the government supports programs like no-downpayment mortgages, that are unheard of in many countries.
2. Public services are visible and efficient. This is true from healthcare to garbage collection and schools. Schools are actually a good example: while daycare in amsterdam would cost around $2,000/month for a child, schools are "free". Of course, once you paid for daycare, you know that it's not free, but paid for from tax, and have a good idea how much goes back into it.
3. Tax returns are ridiculously simple. They can also be done up to five years in the past, in case you forgot to claim refunds.
4. Thanks to how taxes are spent, there is less inequality across society. The government invests in social housing nationwide and has strong social net support, redistributing wealth via taxes from high earners to the low earners. For example, the $2,000/month childcare costs: for low earners the government pays up to 97% of this, dropping to 33% for people well off. Contrast this with places that don't have any of this and the inequality can be seen in all parts of life.
Taxes can be just as high in the US, but without the services. Top rate for California is 50.3% (37% federal + 13.3% state), and New York City is 49.7% (37% fed, 8.82% state 3.876% city)
The US government actually spends more per capita on healthcare($4,197/person/year) than most countries with free excellent healthcare (Switzerland $4178/pp/y, Canada $3074/pp/y, UK $2802/pp/y). Netherlands govt spends barely more than the US govt at $4495/pp/y.
Same for Sweden. Even higher taxed. Now, if we had 5% GDP on defense spending (especially if it looked like money wasted on wars or projects missing budget goals) I'd be fuming. I'm not getting rich (which my job would make me in the US) But I have a great work/life balance, have had 2 kids delivered free, spent 1.5 years off with each (shared with my wife) and now I use the remaining days off to pad my summer holiday from 4 to 7 or 8 weeks. Every year until the kids are 8. Daycare and schools including higher ed is free. My kid was born with an illness and has had 3 ambulance trips and 20 other ER visits with hospitalization in 6 years - still ZERO out of pocket, regardless of whether I was employed at the time. I'd have a comfortable life in the US too (even more comfortable) but what makes me happy to pay the 50%+ taxes is that the nursing assistants tending to my daughter in hospital also afford daycare, higher education and healthcare for their kids just as easily as I can.
a lot of these things are also investments in the sense that healthier, better educated people earn more (=> pay more taxes) and are less likely to develop chronic conditions that the state then has to pay for in some form or another ("welfare", crime, etc.) on the back end.
Once you add in Norways's VAT (equivalent to a sales tax) of 25%, which applies to most purchase and services, the effective tax rate is significantly higher than 51.75%. For most Norwegians, the effective tax burden is close to 75%!!!
I like having education, roads, community services, a safety net for those less fortunate, a strong military, infrastructure and the myriad other things that governments (should) spend money on.
What I do hate is the obsessive hatred of taxes. No wonder governments get into massive debt - they don't have money.
I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay - I really hate that. Apple, Amazon etc etc all guilty of this - they want our money, they want profit from our community, they don't want to contribute back - at all, if they can possibly avoid it.
I also don't hate taxes. And I agree with all of your points.
But I also hate when taxes are raised inefficiently. Don't make me pay taxes by sending me a fee in the mail and requiring me to send a check to some government office (sure, this is not a "tax" it is a "fee", whatever, get with the times). Use taxes to price in externalities. Use VAT instead of sales tax, if at all; use personal income tax in lieu of regressive sales taxes. Use land value tax rather than property tax. Redesign "well-intentioned" tax schemes which subsidize the rich like Prop. 13. Make inflation tax deductible on capital gains but also create higher capital gains brackets. Stop making people guess how much our taxes are and just tell us (specifically, the IRS already knows how much we owe so just charge us that!).
Close tax avoidance loopholes.
I also hate when my taxes are spent inefficiently. Stop with the pork barrel spending. Stop spending so much to subsidize the price of oil. Spend on transportation and renewable energy. Redirect military spending which theoretically could develop technology that could be useful for civilians, and instead fund the civilian-applicable technology directly. Fix the corrupt and broken government contracting system. Redesign welfare (for example, SSI) so that it's always in the recipient's benefit to work if they can.
We need to make our system more efficient. We in the US often pay effective tax rates on par with countries that seem to get so much more bang for their buck when it comes how those taxes are spent. I don't mind taxes in theory at all but I want to feel like I'm getting my money's worth
> I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay
I agree with you, but I don't think we can blame "companies", but who should blame the politicians (or people who voted for them maybe, or the people who buy stuff from these companies). Politicians are the ones who set up the laws allowing companies to avoid taxes. I see corporations as complex autonomous entities whose behavior isn't dictated by any single person, but rather by a "system" that lets them operate.
Individuals and companies cut back spending to match income when it comes down to it... some will leverage until they no longer can, but this is generally accounting hacks in practice. The government does not do so.
The U.S. govt from the top down, and even state and local governments will create a LOT of bureaucracy that provides no added value. Beyond that, they create purchasing systems that force higher spending. When states have tried to create different systems to stop corruption in those lines, the corruption just shifts and it winds up about the same.
There are usually solutions that can work at least as well as what we have with less government incursion and less bureaucracy. Personally, I'd rather see the gov't cut most programs, and allow taxpayers to take roughly half of their own tax burdens and direct them to charities directly. Let people fund what they actually care about directly and advocate themselves.
Also, corporation shouldn't be paying taxes (except as part of trade). They should be limited in terms of holdings and un/underused asset terms and forced to payout to owners/shareholders who would then be liable for taxes. Likewise, non-living entities should have severely restricted "rights" ... this would take a constitutional amendment at this point though.
"Shirking tax" is one of the weirdest moral calls I see regularly. Everyone structures their finances to avoid tax - if you can blame companies for anything it's that they lobby for extra loopholes. Further, sending money to the government is far from an effective way to help society, this blog post argues well for that: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio...
Further, the government is one of the few entities that can spend money to make the world worse. You can donate to charities to help people in countries you haven't heard of, you can buy a yacht and leave them alone, but if you pay that money in taxes then part of it will go to blowing them up for some inscrutable reason.
Again, it's not that companies are saints or that they couldn't do better, it's that hammering them for tax avoidance is probably not the best thing to pick from the long list of corporate ethical failures.
> I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay - I really hate that. Apple, Amazon etc etc all guilty of this
The method by which most of these companies avoid paying taxes does more to help their local and state communities than is appreciated.
It's profits that are taxed and they reduce profits by reinvesting those profits. Reinvesting profits results in more jobs. More jobs allow those that are employed as a result to put food on the the table for their family and a roof over their heads. It also allows those people to pay local, state and federal taxes and participate in those communities.
As a member of the communities where these companies operate, I'm happy that they do what they do to reduce federal taxes because much of what would have been federal taxes ends up in state and local coffers and increases employment opportunities for my neighbors and friends.
I don't hate paying taxes. I hate that I have to "decide" how much I owe. I hate the persistent, nagging feeling that I did it wrong and the IRS may come after me a few years later.
I really wish the legislation allowing the IRS to actually tell you how much you owe would have survived...
It works like this in many places. You log on the website, and all the fields are already filled in by default based on the employer's declarations. Only if you have had special extra income or you want to subtract expenses you have to spend more than 10 minutes on it.
The federal government does too many things, and does them poorly. Our entitlement programs are broken by design, we spend an insane amount on our military, and there are countless federal programs that fritter away taxpayer money. The government should do more with the money we give them instead of constantly demanding more from our citizens.
I don't hate taxes, I hate rich and largely old people asking for taxes to be cut -- but wanting the same services -- such that the buck is passed on to us.
I think the spirit of what Syon is writing about is the root issue of taxes. It's not about paying for education, roads or safety. Syon is addressing the root issue of taxes in his view is about force. Why must citizens of a free country be coerced? Thats the premise he things most struggle with. If you want to solve for paying for education, roads or safety toss this issues into the private sector and Syon can agree the quality of those services would go up and the USA would be more free. So it just depends if you believe in freedom. Some do. Some do not.
I often wonder about a system where a given percentage of the budget, say 10%, would be allocated by people voting directly for it on their tax returns. So individuals can decide that x% of their taxes should go towards education or military or whatever.
> The funding source is not the United States Government. The funding source is US taxpayers.
The right wing likes to proclaim this in support of their dislike of taxes and of government generally (at least when government is telling them what they can and can't do; it seems quite different when they control government and get to tell others what they can't do).
But if we're going to work our way backwards through the chain of funding sources, why stop there? Seems to me that taxpayers' employers could make the same argument about being the funding source — and then the employers' customers — and so on, stretching all the way back to the Big Bang ....
I don't hate or love them, I see them as a necessity but I always remember that at the end of the day taxing is taking money by force from people, so it should be limited to whatever is deemed necessary and should be used in the most efficient way. Therefore it is important to keep a watchful eye and be vigilant when people want to raise it and in general to be strict on the definitions of what is necessary.
A) You can. The US government generates an itemized budget every year. It's several thousands of pages long, and usually the result of several large pieces of legislation. All of these are freely available online.
To a lesser extent, the states also generate itemized budgets. Most but not all of the state-level budget information is available online.
B) You can, to a lesser degree of detail, since non-profit tax returns are made available for public viewing by law. You can use Charity Navigator (fee required) or visit your nearest IRS office to view them. Many states also require non-profits above a certain size to make their financials available upon request.
You mean you can’t see where the money is going? If you know how much money you pay on different levels (local, national and so on) surely also those governments have itemized budgets? You can roughly say what amount you paid for different services then. Transfers between different levels of government could complicate it though.
[+] [-] gregdoesit|6 years ago|reply
It's probably because of how taxes and the government works is different in many ways to the US:
1. You feel it on your own wallet how your tax is spent and redistributed. Even though I pay a large amount in tax, being a high earner, I also get support from the government, paid monthly, for childcare and mortgage interests. Also, the government supports programs like no-downpayment mortgages, that are unheard of in many countries.
2. Public services are visible and efficient. This is true from healthcare to garbage collection and schools. Schools are actually a good example: while daycare in amsterdam would cost around $2,000/month for a child, schools are "free". Of course, once you paid for daycare, you know that it's not free, but paid for from tax, and have a good idea how much goes back into it.
3. Tax returns are ridiculously simple. They can also be done up to five years in the past, in case you forgot to claim refunds.
4. Thanks to how taxes are spent, there is less inequality across society. The government invests in social housing nationwide and has strong social net support, redistributing wealth via taxes from high earners to the low earners. For example, the $2,000/month childcare costs: for low earners the government pays up to 97% of this, dropping to 33% for people well off. Contrast this with places that don't have any of this and the inequality can be seen in all parts of life.
[+] [-] paulsutter|6 years ago|reply
The US government actually spends more per capita on healthcare($4,197/person/year) than most countries with free excellent healthcare (Switzerland $4178/pp/y, Canada $3074/pp/y, UK $2802/pp/y). Netherlands govt spends barely more than the US govt at $4495/pp/y.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-spends-public-money-hea...
[+] [-] alkonaut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maximente|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gamblor956|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggambetta|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|6 years ago|reply
I like having education, roads, community services, a safety net for those less fortunate, a strong military, infrastructure and the myriad other things that governments (should) spend money on.
What I do hate is the obsessive hatred of taxes. No wonder governments get into massive debt - they don't have money.
I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay - I really hate that. Apple, Amazon etc etc all guilty of this - they want our money, they want profit from our community, they don't want to contribute back - at all, if they can possibly avoid it.
[+] [-] opportune|6 years ago|reply
But I also hate when taxes are raised inefficiently. Don't make me pay taxes by sending me a fee in the mail and requiring me to send a check to some government office (sure, this is not a "tax" it is a "fee", whatever, get with the times). Use taxes to price in externalities. Use VAT instead of sales tax, if at all; use personal income tax in lieu of regressive sales taxes. Use land value tax rather than property tax. Redesign "well-intentioned" tax schemes which subsidize the rich like Prop. 13. Make inflation tax deductible on capital gains but also create higher capital gains brackets. Stop making people guess how much our taxes are and just tell us (specifically, the IRS already knows how much we owe so just charge us that!).
Close tax avoidance loopholes.
I also hate when my taxes are spent inefficiently. Stop with the pork barrel spending. Stop spending so much to subsidize the price of oil. Spend on transportation and renewable energy. Redirect military spending which theoretically could develop technology that could be useful for civilians, and instead fund the civilian-applicable technology directly. Fix the corrupt and broken government contracting system. Redesign welfare (for example, SSI) so that it's always in the recipient's benefit to work if they can.
We need to make our system more efficient. We in the US often pay effective tax rates on par with countries that seem to get so much more bang for their buck when it comes how those taxes are spent. I don't mind taxes in theory at all but I want to feel like I'm getting my money's worth
[+] [-] yodsanklai|6 years ago|reply
I agree with you, but I don't think we can blame "companies", but who should blame the politicians (or people who voted for them maybe, or the people who buy stuff from these companies). Politicians are the ones who set up the laws allowing companies to avoid taxes. I see corporations as complex autonomous entities whose behavior isn't dictated by any single person, but rather by a "system" that lets them operate.
[+] [-] tracker1|6 years ago|reply
The U.S. govt from the top down, and even state and local governments will create a LOT of bureaucracy that provides no added value. Beyond that, they create purchasing systems that force higher spending. When states have tried to create different systems to stop corruption in those lines, the corruption just shifts and it winds up about the same.
There are usually solutions that can work at least as well as what we have with less government incursion and less bureaucracy. Personally, I'd rather see the gov't cut most programs, and allow taxpayers to take roughly half of their own tax burdens and direct them to charities directly. Let people fund what they actually care about directly and advocate themselves.
Also, corporation shouldn't be paying taxes (except as part of trade). They should be limited in terms of holdings and un/underused asset terms and forced to payout to owners/shareholders who would then be liable for taxes. Likewise, non-living entities should have severely restricted "rights" ... this would take a constitutional amendment at this point though.
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatshisface|6 years ago|reply
Further, the government is one of the few entities that can spend money to make the world worse. You can donate to charities to help people in countries you haven't heard of, you can buy a yacht and leave them alone, but if you pay that money in taxes then part of it will go to blowing them up for some inscrutable reason.
Again, it's not that companies are saints or that they couldn't do better, it's that hammering them for tax avoidance is probably not the best thing to pick from the long list of corporate ethical failures.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] malandrew|6 years ago|reply
The method by which most of these companies avoid paying taxes does more to help their local and state communities than is appreciated.
It's profits that are taxed and they reduce profits by reinvesting those profits. Reinvesting profits results in more jobs. More jobs allow those that are employed as a result to put food on the the table for their family and a roof over their heads. It also allows those people to pay local, state and federal taxes and participate in those communities.
As a member of the communities where these companies operate, I'm happy that they do what they do to reduce federal taxes because much of what would have been federal taxes ends up in state and local coffers and increases employment opportunities for my neighbors and friends.
[+] [-] bradstewart|6 years ago|reply
I really wish the legislation allowing the IRS to actually tell you how much you owe would have survived...
[+] [-] jobigoud|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swayvil|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pg_bot|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] outside1234|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonless|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jobigoud|6 years ago|reply
Has this been tested anywhere, even locally?
[+] [-] malandrew|6 years ago|reply
The funding source is not the United States Government. The funding source is US taxpayers.
[+] [-] dctoedt|6 years ago|reply
The right wing likes to proclaim this in support of their dislike of taxes and of government generally (at least when government is telling them what they can and can't do; it seems quite different when they control government and get to tell others what they can't do).
But if we're going to work our way backwards through the chain of funding sources, why stop there? Seems to me that taxpayers' employers could make the same argument about being the funding source — and then the employers' customers — and so on, stretching all the way back to the Big Bang ....
[+] [-] mieses|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] golemiprague|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thstart|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gamblor956|6 years ago|reply
To a lesser extent, the states also generate itemized budgets. Most but not all of the state-level budget information is available online.
B) You can, to a lesser degree of detail, since non-profit tax returns are made available for public viewing by law. You can use Charity Navigator (fee required) or visit your nearest IRS office to view them. Many states also require non-profits above a certain size to make their financials available upon request.
[+] [-] alkonaut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenalowe|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dctoedt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] news_to_me|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]