Proof Americans will spend more on taxes this year than housing, food and clothing together

I don't know how credible the source is, but I started tracking my expenses down to the dollar on 1/1/15, and my findings were... well, unsurprising. But if I didn't already know this, I would have been shocked.

30% of every dollar earned taken off the top, before I even saw it
5% on property tax (10% on mortgage interest)
12% mortgage payment (adding a lot extra here to keep it above the total interest)
6% on home bills...


And just for brevity, I've added up food, alcohol, eating out, cell phone bill, medical bills, gasoline, automotive parts and repair costs... essentially everything that I spend to live my life (before what's going into home improvement, which was substantial last year) and it came to just shy of 14% of my pre-tax income.

30% off the top.... 14% to live my life (taxed at 6.5%), 33% to have a place to live it in (of which 5% is tax and 10% is the poor tax called interest)

I find myself in the super fortunate group of my peers, where those numbers add up to less than 100%, and the remainder goes many places... but if you work the tax rate of every post-tax dollar spent and math it all out, my overall dollars spent on taxes to dollars earned comes out right around 40% for 2015.
Land of the free my ass, it costs 40% of my market rate lifeforce just to participate in this game I didn't even choose to play.

originally posted by: Gothmog
Somebody better fact check factcheck. Oh , wait , the funding just comes off a money tree , I reckon. I have heard rumors of the government having those.....You do realize the only "revenue" (means money if you didnt know) comes from taxes.
Of course , I dont live in the world of magical unicorns crapping money for the government....

Well, facts are facts even if you choose not to believe them.

I said how it was funded as did a mod/member as well. They explained it in much more detail than I did even. None of which dealt with magical unicorns or money trees either.

It's not paid for by your taxes though so getting all pissed off about something that isn't true just seems pretty stupid but it's your choice if you want to get all mad about something that isn't even true. Although I don't see what good it's going to do you or anyone else.

originally posted by: mOjOm

originally posted by: Gothmog
Somebody better fact check factcheck. Oh , wait , the funding just comes off a money tree , I reckon. I have heard rumors of the government having those.....You do realize the only "revenue" (means money if you didnt know) comes from taxes.
Of course , I dont live in the world of magical unicorns crapping money for the government....

Well, facts are facts even if you choose not to believe them.

I said how it was funded as did a mod/member as well. They explained it in much more detail than I did even. None of which dealt with magical unicorns or money trees either.

It's not paid for by your taxes though so getting all pissed off about something that isn't true just seems pretty stupid but it's your choice if you want to get all mad about something that isn't even true. Although I don't see what good it's going to do you or anyone else.

First , let me get one thing PERFECTLY CLEAR - I do not get "p***** off". Second , I challenge you to show precisely where the money came from if not from tax money. The government has NO OTHER WAY of raising revenue and paying for something otherwise.There are a lot of misinformed people in this country that believe the government can raise its own money.Like I said....magical unicorns crapping money just for them
Please reply with the requested information with decorum .(If possible . If not , dont bother )

originally posted by: ketsuko

I agree that we should stop propping up green energy.

I don't remember saying anything about Green Energy. I was talking about farmers.

But if we're going to Prop Up any of the energy industries it should be Green Energy before oil and coal. Or at least not oil. I'm not sure what the profits are on coal off hand. But oil makes plenty of profit and they still get Gov. aid and have been for a long time.

At least Green Energy once it does get going enough to support the industry is clean energy. If we put more into that instead of antiquated sources like we do now we wouldn't have to worry about the impact it's doing to the environment.

Why of all energy industries would you single out Green Energy anyway??? Why not Oil, or Coal first at the very least???

a reply to: Gothmog

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Don't order me on how to respond either. Especially when it's you who's being rude. I'll respond any f*ckin way I please. If you don't like it don't f*cking read it.

originally posted by: Edumakated

In other words, it is funded by people who have cell phones and pay their bills. You indirectly pay for it through higher cell phone bills.

Well, isn't everything paid for indirectly by everyone in that same way???

originally posted by: mOjOm
a reply to: Gothmog

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Don't order me on how to respond either. Especially when it's you who's being rude. I'll respond any f*ckin way I please. If you don't like it don't f*cking read it.

Now you earn my saying
Thank you for playing the game , but you are all out of tokens.

a reply to: Gothmog

Oh, I've got plenty of tokens my man. I assure you of that. But if you'd rather not talk to me because I'm not going to accept you rude behavior without saying something in return, that's fine with me.

Go be a bully to someone who will just sit by and take it for all I care. If you weren't being rude to me first we could have had a normal discussion. But you didn't want that obviously so that isn't what happened.

What Americans? All Americans put together? Americans in a particular tax bracket?

I live in Denver. Under ideal circumstances I make about 40k a year. About 25% of that (or 10k) goes to various taxes; federal, state, local, income, sales, and property taxes.

Our mortgage is $1100 / mo. That's a little over 13K a year, or 32% of my income. Food, for a family of 3 is about $750 a month or about 22% of my income. So, right there, my mortgage and food budget is 55% of my income, versus my tax bill which is 25%.

So whomever wrote that piece is high, or lying.

www.nerdwallet.com...

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
What Americans? All Americans put together? Americans in a particular tax bracket?

I live in Denver. Under ideal circumstances I make about 40k a year. About 25% of that (or 10k) goes to various taxes; federal, state, local, income, sales, and property taxes.

Our mortgage is $1100 / mo. That's a little over 13K a year, or 32% of my income. Food, for a family of 3 is about $750 a month or about 22% of my income. So, right there, my mortgage and food budget is 55% of my income, versus my tax bill which is 25%.

So whomever wrote that piece is high, or lying.

www.nerdwallet.com...

It is going to apply to higher income brackets moreso than lower income brackets. As people's income goes up, they don't necessarily spend dramatically more on food and shelter. Someone making $150k/yr will pay substantially more in taxes than you, but they won't necessarily spend substantially more on food and clothing.

Regardless, the point is that taxes are taking a huge portion of people's budgets. It is absolutely criminal imho that government takes so much of the productive class's earnings and then knowingly pisses away the money.

originally posted by: Edumakated
Regardless, the point is that taxes are taking a huge portion of people's budgets. It is absolutely criminal imho that government takes so much of the productive class's earnings and then knowingly pisses away the money.

So anyone not making at least 150k a year isn't productive huh???

Productive classes?

I work two jobs, attend college full time, raise two kids, write features, short stories and novels and make records.

I've known several people in that tax bracket, and they are typically corporate lawyers or "small" business people who knowingly employ suckers at wage levels which automatically qualify the earner for subsidies and assistance.

The rest are on the tail end of a corporate career in one of the big three sectors, who have worked their way up the pucker-chain to c-band or better, and spend most of their time playing golf or boinking their neighbors wives.

"Productive" is -- more often than not -- a charitable stretch for parasites with over inflated egos and no real or lasting accomplishments beyond being fairly good at Monopoly.

a reply to: Edumakated

The productive classes are the only doing all the real work with their hands and back propping everything up in this country while making the least money doing so.

you can argue on weather or not the obama phones are funded through tax all you want to, but the fact is the program was created by a republican (Reagan), with both parties supporting the program at the time. Another Republican (Bush) gave the poor the choice between cell phones, or landlines.

Lifeline now provides phone service to millions of people. Who are these people? According to one provider, most have a household income of less than $15,000 per year. Nearly a third are over the age of 55 and more than one-third are disabled.

thehill.com...

so, can't help but ask, just how is it that it's obama phones to begin with? he didn't come up with this idea, if there's abuse in the system it has probably been there through many administrations, both democratic and republican...
in so many ways, our society it built with the expectation to you will have a phone- preferably a cell phone! employers expect to be able to call you into work at a moment's notice, schools expect to be able to reach you if your child is sick, heck, even the danged auto shop expect your to have a phone number that they can reach you at when you drop your car off to be fixed! and well, that tendency to high expectations is now extending over to internet access, look at just how many employers will only take applications via the internet, with most stores, temp agencies, ect expecting it.
one can say that well, there are workarounds, the job seeking can go to the library or the unemployment office to search for work, they can use their neighbor or friend as a contact number. but, well, the hours that the library and unemployment office is open might be inconvenient or impossible for some, there might be transportation problems, ect. and well I have had the school unable to reach anyone when my child was sick in school, they didn't like it much!!!

you can reduce the amount of assistance the gov't gives to the poor, but then you also have to be prepared to reduce the expectations society has built up through time because of the assistance that has been given. employers might have to go back to having hard copy applications on file, their employees might not be so reachable, and they might have to pay those employees more. schools might have to accept that the parents just can't be reached, or that they can't make it in to pick up their kids from school.

I don't have a cellphone, won't carry one, because I don't want to be expected to be available 24/7 for whatever stupid reason someone might have to contact me, heck I hate my landline even, since well, I get more telemarketers and scammers calling me than actually people who I know and would like to talk to. But, well, I get asked for my cell phone number alot, and have even noticed on some forms online, they will reject it if you don't put in a cellphone number.

a reply to: Edumakated

but then, we can't seem to reach an agreement as to just what is a waste of money, and most of us are too lazy to actually look at some of the stupid things the gov't does spend their money on.... which there are some really stupid things!!
but no, the conservatives will fight tooth and nail about the social security, the food stamps, the help that goes to the poor, while they rattle their sabers and try to get us to support their newest hope for another war!!
the money that the obama phones have cost you is microscopic compared to the costs that those wars have rung up, and are still ringing up!

you can't get blood from a rock, and well, that is what you will be trying to do if you try to take more money from the ones who have the least... it will just be taken out somewhere else, if not from those gov't programs, then well, maybe in employers having to pay you less so they can pay them more, or maybe it will just be the blight and crime that poverty creates.