> Why would anyone oppose a simple system like this?
Because you want to make people angry and upset at least once a year at the government? Because you want to remind people that taxes are something the government takes, instead of letting them think of taxes as money they never earned to begin with.
I love paying my taxes, but if you think taxes are bad (and lots of people do), then the current U.S. system makes total sense.
I'm sort of with you on this. I am proud to know, for example, that my taxes help pay for healthcare for everyone and schools and roads and so on. I like to believe I'll pay in more than I'll get out and that's brilliant.
However. Come bonus time I really struggle with the bit where they say "we're going to give you £x" and then I actually get a bit over half that in the bank. Somehow I internalise the number x and it feels like the tax has been 'taken' in a way I never would for my monthly salary.
It's an interesting if purely psychological difference in my response to taxation.
I completely agree, it's the one time I find paying tax annoying (UK tax payer). My current employer has an option where you can pay any bonus directly into your pension, which is tax free.
If you aren't relying on the bonus for other things it's a good option. It means the bonus sort of 'disappears' psychologically, but then if you have a mortgage it probably just gets swallowed up by that anyway.
Income tax is still very visible in NZ. On your payslip it lists the before-tax value, and then deductions for PAYE, student loan payments, etc. Plus wages/salary are still expressed as a before-tax rate, so you can see the disparity there too.
I get the argument, but whether or not I /want/ to pay taxes, I still have to, so why make it inconvenient? The NZ government finds plenty of other ways to make me angry and upset anyway.
Hidden transactions are a problem in any somewhat free economy, whether it's insurance, club dues, auto payments to service providers, or taxes. The usual sales point is that "But you don't have to think about them!" and the problem is that you never think about them -- when you should.
That's not saying taxes should be onerous or deliberately painful -- any more than paying your bank's monthly fees should be onerous or painful. But none of those should be invisible, either. Transactions that are never consciously reviewed are never scrutinized for value. That's no long-term good to either participant in the transaction.
Nobody's advocating taxes as "hidden" transactions. You used the example of your bank's monthly fees... which is far less transparent than this suggestion. My bank simply emails me a reminder to check my account with them once per month. It doesn't allow me to contest or correct their accounting at all.
Your fear -- that by removing the hassle of tax preparation, people will dwell in blissful ignorance of their tax burden and the government will jack up tax rates -- is not borne out by my experiences in countries where return-free tax filing is the norm.
In what country are you paying taxes? And is your tax rate above or below 30%?
Based on anecdotal evidence, I think that people paying more than 30% rarely ever "love" paying taxes. Below that, it seems to feel much more ok (I'm also below 30% and - while I'm not enthusiastic about paying taxes - it feels like a fair deal).
Let me add another anecdote here. I live in Denmark, which together with Sweden has some of the highest marginal tax rates. I am certainly in the high end of income, and i am happy to pay my taxes.
First of all, it means supporting a robust social system, that have provided treatment for my family member's cancer for free. Something that would likely have resulted in bankruptcy in the US, prior to ACA.
Secondly, being in the high end of the tax rate, means i have a high income as well - and it seems only fair that i pay more in taxes than people who make very little to begin with. Society has to function, and let's make the broadest shoulders bear the largest burden.
40-45% combined rate here. I'm thrilled to be privileged enough to be in this tax rate, and while I disagree on some of where my taxes go to, I'm upset with that distribution more than I am the rate. I do not want my taxes to be lowered.
Tax rate above 30% here. Considering I just finished a master degree education that was virtually free, with even living costs heavily subsidized (both stipend and ridiculously low student loan interest), I pay my taxes gladly. I'm not sure I will be a net positive for the government for another decade at least.
I think free higher education is one thing that really help sell higher taxes to high income earners. Free(ish) healthcare is awesome, but you get the feeling that it mostly benefits poorer and older people. Free higher education is comparatively cheap, but it makes our lives simpler and stress free.
I'm from Sweden, way above 30%, still love to pay taxes. Countries where they avoid to pay taxes at all cost like Greece is usually a reminder of why it is important that the government really enforces tax paying and that the taxes are high.
Actually, Greece doesn't remind us about why high taxes are good. Their taxes are high. The problem is corruption; the money is squandered, and the economy is choked by taxes, favouritism, corruption and nepotism.
Thus, Greece is an example of why we need to remember to keep our politicians at check.
US worker here with taxes above 40% (if you include state). My taxes are not high enough. We run a deficit. Schools don't get enough money. Roads have potholes. We have poor and homeless people who don't get enough to eat. Etc.
What a sophomoric, bad faith quip. What agent of common infrastructure do you prefer? How many dams have they fixed and how much diplomacy do they engage in?
If people in general "loved" paying taxes, then taxation could be replaced with a voluntary system. It is precisely the fact that the people who love paying taxes are a minority that coercion has to be used.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. Time and time again voters approve plans to increase spending on things they want to have. If the people generally really wanted to drastically reduce government spending and reduce their tax burden they could vote for it, but they don't as long as they think they're getting a fair enough share of benefits from it.
Yes, funding a $600 billion military industrial complex [0]. Just think, your complete yearly taxes were probably almost enough for a single JDAM [1] which was then dropped on Iraq, in a war where 13% of all civilians were killed directly by US-led forces [2], and many more in the chaos that ensued from the invasion.
The problem with that isn't taxation, it's voting in people who approve that spending.
UK tax payer here, so the specifics are different, but I have no problem paying my taxes. We have decent free health care, a capable and I think 'right sized' armed forces for our needs, competent policing and security services and my children get free education. If any of those things were not true I wouldn't necessarily want my taxes to be reduced, I'd want the problems with those services to be fixed.
Right-sized? You have almost no tanks anymore, and the ones you do are 80's era. The Royal Navy is a shadow of a shadow navy. The RAF is woefully under-equipped to protect against Russian incursions.
Its called "chain of numbness". Chasing doesn't murder innocent Iraq children; he is far from it but by aiding financially the army that does murder, are his hands truly clean?
The $600 billion figure is misleading when compared to other countries, as it's not adjusted for cost of living, cost of countries we trust (and therefore buy arms from) also having a higher cost of living, etc.
Why precisely is having the worlds largest military bad? Do you think it doesnt add any value? It seems theres a lot of people outside of America who'd like to see it shrunk for very bad reasons.
Why not keep the military and solve our problems without it? We need it to be safe now, and until we've already solved our problems, we'll still need it.
Obviously it doesn't always work well and it definitely causes problems, doesn't mean we should get rid of or even reduce it.
The bad is there is an opportunity cost of dollars spent. And the US could likely still dominate global firepower rankings at half the current spend, meanwhile this saving could significantly improve the education or health system with that money. Or reduce the tax burden on people. Or simply bank it to reduce the debt and burden of repayment for future years. Lots you could do with hundreds of billions.
"the US could likely still dominate global firepower rankings at half the current spend"
True, but just winning a war or conflict is not an ideal outcome. Overwhelming advantage not only prevents conflict from occurring, it also assures that casualties are low in even low intensity / regional conflicts.
The US operates on the principle that it must outspend the next 2 countries in military spending. It's an insurance policy in case say, Russia and China team up against the US.
Which is madness, of course. Because spending twice as much doesn't necessarily mean Americans see twice the value. I can easily spend twice as much on a worse car than my neighbor owns.
Some people would disagree with you. I believe military and defense spending should actually be one of the only role of governments. Leave healthcare and education to industry. Let the free market decide the curriculum, teachers salaries, and come up with innovative ways of teaching. I see no reason Khan academy shouldn't be allowed to teach our children. Since when did it become common place to allow a government to come up with a path of study, and make it mandatory to send your kid to for 13 years? As governments slowly accept more and more social programs, the government balloons. Value produced slowly stops representing capital. In germany, where social programs are abundant you get a lot of leeches on the economy. Very long unemployment timeframes, with reltively good pay, Full health coverage, unlimited sick time if you have a doctors note. In a system that can be "gamed", there will be a large amount of people who do so.
I don't believe there are systems that can't be gamed. Given that assumption it's probably better to decide policy based on actual results. In places where social programs are abundant you have fewer suffering individuals, it seems healthier to count that as a win and not get hung up on the (truly rather small) percentage of people potentially gaming the system.
Seems like the comment you're replying to is fine with our system that can be gamed by those at the top but is afraid of gaming by those at the bottom.
A large military "in reserve" becomes stagnant, and unable to operate in new real world conflicts. Look at the Vietnam war, or the current conflict in the Ukraine. Tactics change, and large militaries bent on keeping their swollen budgets in tact are poor at responding to emerging threats.
My point is that these smaller conflicts (albeit mostly misguided) are useful to guide and reform strategy, tactics and spending.
So we should kill a couple of hundred thousand people every decade or so to keep our game up? Seems pretty indefensible. I'd rather invest a much smaller amount of money into honest red team war gaming.
I said they're useful, I don't agree or advocate the strategy. Like it or not (I do not) small regional conflicts teach valuable lessons that cannot be learned in training, or during "war gaming". When the enemy possess weapons or tactics that you have not seen used, or demonstrated they cannot be integrated into a war game. Look at the upgraded armor, drone usage, IED detection/suppression, sniper detection developed for and used in the middle east. This barely existed (maybe in concept) before the conflicts of the 00's. Similar lessons are being learned in the Ukraine right now (counter drone operations, active tank armor, electronic warfare/signal jamming etc.)
I think people argue not with having the largest military, but with having military expenses which are 3 times those of China and 10 times those of Russia, and with the rest of the big countries being US allies.
I agree with you completely. There are so many unknown benefits that we gain with having such a large military that its very hard to calculate. Also, one of the worst things that could ever possibly happen in a war is being evenly matched. If one country (or group) isn't completely superior in every way, the war becomes a meat grinder and lasts longer than it should have.
Would you like to pay more? Because that is an option.
edit: OK, I understand the sentiment of being happy to contribute to society, but no-one assumes a perfect equation of their taxes to the appropriate and desired government spending thereof.
I take great pride in paying taxes. It's such a good deal when I look at what it would cost to be American.
I'm not trying to rag on being American. But I've got close ties with the U.S. so often I compare what a life event would have been like, had I been a typical U.S. family of my economic class.
Sweden. Free university, no fee healthcare for kids, a few dollars for adults. But it's a sketchy country... be careful if you go there. #lastnightinsweeden
You'll find sketchy things in any country. "Be careful" is quite the exaggeration in my opinion. Not going to the worst neighbourhoods during Friday nights applies to anywhere.
Southern Sweden seems to have a "last night" problem pretty much every night except when Trump spoke about it.
(Swedish crime rate is still low, at least in homicides it's much lower than the U.S., but Sweden is unlike most Western countries in that the murder rate has stopped going down and has turned upwards, and the politicians sem to be in denial. The police are laying down unsolved murder investigations simply because there are so many newer cases.)
Same here. Every time my son is unwell, I get an almost instant appointment with our local doctor. All his medicine is paid for. He gets a good education, a safe environment in which to grow up, lots of good activities. Taxes might have been lower in Victorian England, but I sure as hell am happy I was born in the 1980s.
I equate this to the first time I paid my own rent. I loved it. I was paying my own money for my own place and it felt awesome. It seems crazy to love paying rent but there was a period of time where I did.
That makes sense if you're a 3rd world immigrant, because the value delta between your old life and your new life is immense. For someone born in a 1st world country, it makes little sense to compare their situation with that of a 3rd world denizen. Reference points are subjective. I take issue with the way my government collects taxes and how it distributes them. I don't care how Africa or India are doing.
When I went to Australia I was surprised at the number of people from my ethnic background who had immigrated as adults and would complain bitterly about taxes. They loved the safety and security, general standard of education, healthcare, amenities, infrastructure, opportunities and their secondary effects (well-educated employees for their businesses, people who showed up to work instead of being home sick and so on). They just couldn't connect with the idea that taxes might be the reason that these were available.
It would guess it's a pretty common thread among people who grew up unused to a properly functioning government.
You were forced to immigrate to this country?! Otherwise... the "force" part here is more like, "I was forced to pay for the meal I decided to eat at the restaurant! How dare they!"
Maybe because in real world the choice is between fixed alternatives and not imaginary scenarios? Even if you think US taxes are way too high and immoral, it's not like you can live in a country like US but without taxes. You can live in a country much worse than the US with taxes, or in US with taxes, or in a country with failed government where there are not taxes but instead people might just kill you on the street. So you might make non-ideal choice, knowing it's not ideal, but it's best of what you have. Every country has its benefits and its flaws, and accepting it as it is doesn't mean one has to be blind to the flaws.
Maybe there's a correlation for a reason? Namely that functional governments which keep the peace and provide services to their citizens need income in order to operate.
What US government is doing goes very far beyond "keeping the peace". Only the discretionary budget is 1.5 trillion dollars. Americans would be a really wild bunch if it required $1.5 trillion to "keep the peace".
Roads are the go-to argument for the value of taxes. But it's a dumb point to make because there are a ton of programs which we fund but do not benefit from. In fact, the vast majority of every dollar we pay in taxes does absolutely nothing to benefit us directly. No one argues against true infrastructure investments, it's all the other b.s. that we hate (immigrants and non-immigrants alike).
Being a dick to someone for seeing what's wrong with the taxes here is awfully small of you.
Not really happy paying high taxes, but I think the alternatives are worse. The definition of "first world country" should include "takes care of the less fortunate ones". Which, when I look at countries with less taxes than mine, doesn't seem to happen.
I have a problem with the rate, collection and spending of taxes. I'd love to see us move away from property and income taxes... Income taxes are at least technically a tax on trade though. I'm not quite sure what the answer is, to be honest. I've just seen so much waste, it sickens me.
Come up with an alternative that's better and I'll happily support it. The problem is that too many people are comparing the current system -- taxes to fund governments -- with a nonexistent utopia.
Yes, I love the command line and want to remind people how it was back in the days when they didn't have these GUIs. Everyone will have to give up the GUI! Its a legitimate cause! : ) </sarcasm>
Because you want to make people angry and upset at least once a year at the government? Because you want to remind people that taxes are something the government takes, instead of letting them think of taxes as money they never earned to begin with.
I love paying my taxes, but if you think taxes are bad (and lots of people do), then the current U.S. system makes total sense.