I've thought long and hard about what it would take to start a tax revolt. And my conclusion is that it is not possible right now. Very few people are angry about taxation, because a lot of it is paid in the form of income tax which is deducted from a payroll check. Nobody even considers that it was their money to begin with, they don't miss it when it's deducted. Even somebody earning only $40,000 a year is having over $1000 a month withheld from their paycheck in various typed of deductions. Since they never saw it, they don't care. It is impossible to get that person angry enough to revolt, and you need all of them angry to get a tax revolt started. Until we can figure out a way to make the rest of the country mad, we are going to continue to be soaked.
What's amazing is that SOME of us STILL have jobs even though we tax the crap out of employers. The taxes ALONE on having an employee are more than wages, taxes and benefits, TOTAL on an employee in China. When EVERYONE's jobs have been outsourced, maybe we'll rethink the idea of taxing work.
We Americans are mostly oblivious to financial matters, including taxation. If we can't get the masses "angry enough to revolt", then we need some high profile person... someone who can capture the public's ear... to make noise. Short of that, it's going to continue to be the "same old, same old".
Wrong. The Social Security Tax is a flat rate from zero income to an income cap ($102,000 for 2008). There is no tax over the income cap and income over the cap is not used to calculate benefits. Flat rate in and highly progressive coming out makes the overall result as a tax highly progressive. Social Security is set up to be the best deal for low income people and the worst deal for high income people.
Great article. Too bad none of the follow up posts "get it." It's like you guys only read the first half of the article. I'm a little disappointed.
No not true at all. Only those Americans who have weekly withholding are "oblivious." Those of us who pay estimated quarterlies are QUITE AWARE of the Taxes that they pay.
That's the truth, and plus FICA, MEDI and State Income Tax, it gets twice as ugly because you have to pay the employee's 1/2 in addition to the employer's 1/2. The saddest thing is that you don't get anything at all for it, and you have to watch them waste just about every friggin penny of it. Then, to add insult to injury, they tell you it wasn't enough and borrow/spend another 50%.
You guy's are missing THE salient point about "revolts." Most don't care because most are not taxed! Why does Chavez win free elections? That's the problem with a code that excludes a large segment of the electorate from taxation. People ask me why I so vehemently hate the Democrats. It's because of their anti-Patriot, class warfare stance. Couple that with racist divisions and there's no doubt in my mind that the day America becomes 50.01% brown there'll be a tax the rich Euro-whitey, slave owner imperial capitalists law rivaling Marxism. The table is already set. Why do you think Gates and Buffet are lib icons? Anything other would be foolery toward their survival. If they were ever outspoken enemies of the left their respective fortunes could be just several years away from confiscation.