What happens with you lot and taxes?
In the UK Value Added Tax is added to items. Income Tax is removed on a monthly/weekly basis at source. You only have to fill in tax forms when you are self employed.
I was just watching an episode of The Wonder Years online and the mum was worried because she had lost the receipts. But the man was employed - not self employed...so even if you are employed, do you have to fill out tax receipts?
Our tax code is a nightmare.
It's probably better left explained by people who know what they're doing.
This seems like a good one to start with. Keep in mind that not only is our tax code huge, but it changes from year to year. It was originally created to be a tax only on the most wealthy Americans. Slowly it grew over time to cover everyone. Then it blossomed into more than a tax code, but a system of incentives to reward and punish certain behavior.
Good summary: http://www.cstr.org/commentaries/taxreform/IBD-complicated2005.html
Simple answers: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130517072111AAYMUBj
More complicated answers: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/improve/simplification/why.cfm
There are, however, people who would like to change it. Some would like a flat tax: http://www.heritage.org/research/factsheets/2012/01/the-new-flat-tax-encourages-growth-and-job-creation
Others would like to go to a VAT system like you Euros have.
The key is not to allow both a VAT and an income tax. Having both would simply be too much.
added to that, we have multiple layers of taxation here that don't exist in many other countries b/c of the differences in federal, state, and local jurisdictions.
Remember, the battle cry of the revolution was TAXATION WITH REPRESENTATION!
:))
Tennessee isn't so bad. We have a decent fuel tax, paid at the pump (though pretty harsh 'sin' taxes on tobacco and booze, but not a problem for those who don't smoke or drink, which in a state largely composed of at least nominal Baptists is a significant number); local and county sales tax, just under 10% total in my county, paid at the point of purchase for items received in state (TN doesn't charge sales tax on items shipped in from out of state); no state income tax; and then the federal social security and medicare taxes and income tax (which are deducted by employers, unless self-employed). Those have to be filed every year, to prove you've paid them, but unless you're trying to game the system or are self-employed (or the equivalent thereof, like doing a lot of day trading) it's pretty easy.
Mom keeps some tax receipts for large-dollar purchases, and we check those each year to see if collating them gives her and Dad a better deduction than a standard deduction, but it rarely does and no one really needs to do that: you can just opt to take the standard deduction.
Tax software is cheap or even free if you're filing an EZ form, and the software leads a person through the hoops in about an hour.
If you're trying to get out of paying income taxes, then there are more hoops to jump through to prove you have an exemption; or if you're earning enough money as an individual that you might as well be a business, that can get a bit complex. Otherwise it isn't a big deal. My employees don't even bother filing themselves: they take their W-forms in mid-to-late January showing what they got paid and how much we already held out of their checks for taxes, go to a tax hut, and in fifteen minutes get a check cut for their full rebate on income tax bang, zoom (minus a commission for instant rebate of course). True, they have to lend the money to the federal government over the year at no return interest, but they get it all back at the start of the year. (What they don't get back is social security and medicare taxes, which our company has to pay a matching tax on; but in theory they get that back later, too, for retirement. Or other people's medicare and ss, rather. ;) )
Things are naturally a little more complex for states with income taxes, but I doubt it's much moreso.
Again, what complicates matters is (a) looking for ways to NOT pay tax (or to get a rebate on tax held out) -- and even that's pretty simple from lower-middle class downward; and/or (b) being legally or practically self-employed, in which case you're taxed as or like a business.
Here's an example of how crazy the tax system can be here. In this case it's a state level tax:
QuoteWhen it came time last year to move his family back to Pennsylvania from North Carolina to care for aging relatives, Jeffrey Sutton bought a larger truck to haul their belongings.
Sutton never realized a bigger truck would leave him with a bigger tax bill once he returned to the Keystone State a few months after buying it. But that's what happened when he went to get his new license plate.
Even though Sutton paid North Carolina's 4.75 percent sales tax on the truck, Pennsylvania law requires he pay the difference between the two state's rates. Pennsylvania has a 6 percent sales and use tax, so Sutton had to fork over about a grand to make up the gap, he said.
source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/02/pennsylvania-tax-law-wallops-man-who-bought-truck-before-moving
At the Federal level, we have income taxed. We also have payroll taxes on Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare and fuel tax.
In Ohio, we also have income taxes, fuel tax, both on top of whatever we pay to the feds.
I don't live in town, but we do have an income tax for our school district. If I lived in town, I would also have to pay income tax. If I don't live in town, but work in one, I have to pay their income tax. If I work in one town and live in another, I may have to pay both of their income taxes.
Then there are the sales taxes. Both the state and the county have their own taxes. You pay both when you make purchase. Some things like food are exempt.
Oh, and lets not forget the property taxes. Those can vary based on where you live. School districts all have a property tax. Then you may have ones for safety, libraries, help for those with mental & physical disabilities, museums, zoo's, ditch cleaning, etc. The rates are based on the value of the property you own.
That's just ones that I can think of and what applies most to me.
Just so you know, For taxes and fees, the Federal's get $3.1 T, States collect $1.6 T, and locals get $1.1 T. That's just over 33.8% of GDP.
Total spending is $6.4T or 37.1%
http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/taxes/T054-S001-10-most-tax-friendly-states-in-the-u-s/index.html
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftaxfoundation.org%2Fsites%2Ftaxfoundation.org%2Ffiles%2Fdocs%2Fincome_collections_large.png&hash=8b73176caa7fda568a6f8dd431b032e3eb5ed314)
So basically one half of the country is paying for the other half.
Maybe we owe the EU an apology for some of the things we said.
Why would some states be producing $0 in Income Tax? I presume people are in employment, right? :idiot2:
Those income taxes are state-level income taxes. Several states charge no income tax, preferring instead to use a combination of sales taxes and corporate taxes to fund the state gov't.
wow. I had no idea the States in the US had such autonomy.
I suppose given the vastness of the country and the population diversity and spread it makes sense that once size doesn't fit all.
Some states are definitely getting more than their fair share of the federal tax pie (compared to what they pay in) so there isn't much incentive to piss off voters by bringing in state taxes. Florida's tax deficit is especially notable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state#Tables_of_Federal_Taxation_and_Spending_by_State
JD, when you hear about battles over the budge and taxes, it's at the federal level. It's not one party hating a group or a program, but wanting to push it to the state and local level, where in a lot of cases they are already spending money on those programs. All the federal level does is to add a layer of bureaucracy and rules.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on February 03, 2015, 06:42:04 AM
Those income taxes are state-level income taxes. Several states charge no income tax, preferring instead to use a combination of sales taxes and corporate taxes to fund the state gov't.
Yeah.
New Hampshire, for instance, has no income tax, but they do have a state sales tax and their property taxes (taxes on houses and cars) is quite high.
The bottom line is: nothing is free. The roads, schools, cops, firefighters, teachers et al have to be paid for somehow. Just because a state has no income tax doesn't mean there aren't taxes in the state.
Quote from: JudgeDredd on February 03, 2015, 06:52:37 AM
wow. I had no idea the States in the US had such autonomy.
I suppose given the vastness of the country and the population diversity and spread it makes sense that once size doesn't fit all.
Our country was founded on the principle of a weak central government. However, the initial blueprint, the Articles of Confederation, proved unworkable because they were too weak.
Our next blueprint, the Constitution, is what we have now. As with almost anything the government slowly grew over time in scope and size to what we have today.
In recent years, Tennessee unofficially added a 'voluntary' tax by instituting a state lottery rather than add a state income tax.
Republicans and Democrats both agreed more money needed collecting for state budgets.
Republicans tended to argue in favor of a state income tax, since that way the tax burden would be spread more equally among all social classes, especially among the rich and the upper-middle class since as usual the lower-middle-class downward were expected to get most or all their income tax back in a rebate at the end of the year (a zero-interest loan to the state, but they wouldn't be out anything more than some minor hassle).
Democrats tended to argue that by a lottery, a few poor people could become (briefly) very rich each year at the expense of all the other poor people gambling on who would get to be rich (while ignoring who would actually be buying lottery tickets); and pretended the income tax would be money poor people wouldn't be getting back at the end of the year.
Since the high population areas are the majority of the state's population, and skew heavily Democratic (despite a generally Republican mode for the state overall), the vote passed for a state lottery. Which has, as expected, filled state coffers with money 99.999% drawn from lower-middle-class citizens (and non-citizens from the 8 surrounding states) downward, which only a handful ever see again.
In effect, the wealthy Democrats convinced the poorer half of the population to voluntarily tax themselves on a plan that kept the wealthy from paying more taxes -- while demonizing the generally more-wealthy Republicans for wanting a tax that would be shouldered almost entirely by the wealthier half of the population. In fact, Republicans that year even floated the idea of getting rid of sales tax entirely since it eats more of a percentage of lower-down income than higher-up income.
In my more supervillainish moments, I toy with how to propose a lottery tied to the sales of alcohol and/or tobacco (without of course reducing any of the tax on those items). ;)
Quote from: LongBlade on February 03, 2015, 08:20:13 AM
Quote from: JudgeDredd on February 03, 2015, 06:52:37 AM
wow. I had no idea the States in the US had such autonomy.
I suppose given the vastness of the country and the population diversity and spread it makes sense that once size doesn't fit all.
Our country was founded on the principle of a weak central government. However, the initial blueprint, the Articles of Confederation, proved unworkable because they were too weak.
Our next blueprint, the Constitution, is what we have now. As with almost anything the government slowly grew over time in scope and size to what we have today.
Anti-federalism was tarred by association with the Confederate Rebellion (and their insistence on states' rights to determine whether to abolish or keep slavery, among other things -- the Confederacy attempted to go back to the Articles of Confederation), but has been making a bit of a renaissance among political scholars recently. A relatively short but fascinating bit of history on the topic is Bill Kauffman's
Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin, which I read a few years ago (along with the more comprehensive history of
Freedom Just Around the Corner by MacDougal; and his sequel on the Civil War on its aftermath,
Throes of Democracy. I seem to recall learning about Kauffman's book while reading MacDougal...)
The main legacy of anti-federalism is the Bill of Rights, which has probably been of weightier impact in American judicial and legal dispute than the "Constitution" overall.
Yep, we don't have a state income tax (thank goodness) though our sales tax is 8.25% on virtually everything.
At the state and local level, they lie a lot about new income schemes, promising one thing and then delivering quite another. When our state decided to start the lottery back in 1990 or so, they pimped it to the public in a way that indicated all income would go directly to the school system. On that, the public overwhelmingly passed it. Texas then had a HUGE budget surplus that gosh, surprisingly (a) did not go to schools, which is a shame as our school system here is really flucking terrible in general, and (b) the surplus was wasted on stupid liberal programs that went absolutely nowhere. Big surprise.
Another favorite of mine is the 'toll road' scam. When Houston built the Sam Houston Tollway (basically a big circle going around the city), they said once they had collected enough money to cover the cost of building the monstrosity, they'd open it up for free. Not! They went back on that word too, even raising the damn price every few years. The toll road isn't even a decent way of getting around; it's ALWAYS gridlocked, so there's no point in paying a dumbass government money to sit and not move, when I can do that for free on the interstate.
On top of that, they're now building a "Grand Parkway" that's even bigger and even further out. The construction up here by me is a nightmare. Combined with the gigantic Exxon facility they're building and I-45 is pretty much a parking lot at any time of the day. And even though I've not heard anything I'm 150% certain they'll be charging even more than the Sam Houston Tollway to access it.
Just an FYI guys, sales taxes in the low-to-mid teens are the norm in much of Europe :)
...which pays for their oh-so-better healthcare...
...huge military...
...effective social programs...
...oh hell, I have no idea what they blow their Monopoly money on. :)
^^ Buying reserve currency. >:D
Quote from: bayonetbrant on February 03, 2015, 12:14:32 PM
Just an FYI guys, sales taxes in the low-to-mid teens are the norm in much of Europe :)
Oh, certainly; that's one reason I was saying earlier our tax situation really isn't all that bad. Aside from people occasionally tripping over lumps in the code, as long as you aren't trying to get out of paying for some reason it's pretty E-Z -- and since we have a population that's sizeably wealthy (compared to the rest of the world), we can get away with not taxing quite as much.