Military pay, taxing your taxes

I just had a thought, as I am in the Military and I get paid from the tax payers, thank you in advance all of you who pay your taxes! Why is it than that I have to pay taxes? I was under the understanding that the government could not tax taxes. Perhaps I am missing something and if I am Please let me know what that is.

And now that I have to pay for on post housing yes the military charges you rent now. Utilities as well, I now live well below the poverty line. All that tax money I pay would be nice to have.

reply to post by SPC_D


I actually think, receiving tax dollars, and getting taxed on it...is quite different from a person who works and is forced to pay the tax dollars under threat of a gun.

A person who works and provides a service or a product, is paid by someone else for that service, so...in other words SOMEONE has put a VALUE for what they receive. The government then comes along and takes its 30 to 40% or maybe more of its undeserved share or portion of what has been earned by said individual to then redistribute it to wherever it sees fit.

A person who works for the government, on the other hand is on the receiving end of tax dollars from the productive class and thus consumes that income. That is why government is not considered the productive body in society, government can and IS consumption by definition. The tax dollars taxed on that income should not really be considered a TAX to begin by people who work for the government...since the bureaucrat working for said government is not part of the productive labor force.

If I were you, I would consider the so-called tax that you get taxed on as a mere reduction in the pay you originally receive from the productive class, in the form of our TAX dollars.

reply to post by Gateway


be that as it may it does not change the fact the govement is dubble diping and that is not legal or so i thought

reply to post by SPC_D



I agree, I despise all taxes...

Originally posted by Gateway
reply to post by SPC_D

 

I agree, I despise all taxes...

Sure do like all those fancy roads and things though, don't ya?

And to SPC_D, actually when you think about it every dollar in the economy is taxed over and over again. Each time it is reported as income by either an individual or business it is taxed. The question I have is if a dollar I earn has been taxed several times before I get it, what exactly is my paycheck worth?

reply to post by Montana


You mean those wonderful things I drive on everyday where i constantly swerve to avoid or drive through pot holes, and when I do drive over them they are heavily congested with other people, not to mention millions of people die on them every year.

I would hardly use the word "fancy"... to describe public roads.

Seems to me, that all of these things would be taken care of if they privatized them.



[edit on 29-6-2009 by Gateway]

reply to post by Gateway


Oh my goodness, yes!

We have had SUCH good luck with that whole privatization thing over the past couple of decades, haven't we!

Meh, I hear my bed calling me and saying something about beating dead horses. Good night, all.

reply to post by Montana



You mean the turmoil caused by the Fed, and government regulations known as Community reinvestment act?

I don't think the private sector sent interest rates down to 1% causing the housing boom and the private sector also didn't force itself to loan out ARMS to unqualified people either. Nope, if you want to blame someone for the mess we are in, you need to look no further than to your elected officials.

Originally posted by Gateway
reply to post by Montana

 

You mean the turmoil caused by the Fed, and government regulations known as Community reinvestment act?

I don't think the private sector sent interest rates down to 1% causing the housing boom and the private sector also didn't force itself to loan out ARMS to unqualified people either. Nope, if you want to blame someone for the mess we are in, you need to look no further than to your elected officials.

Wow, talk about revision history.

Lack of regulations is what got us where we are:

The best protection is a working regulatory institution.

While bush was in office, he installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee, which is a bit like assigning the fox to guard the hen house.

To add fuel to the fire, the SEC was filled with men of such unfathomable incompetence, they did not notice Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme after receiving detailed reports for nearly 10 years outlining ever detail of illegal activity.

Describing them thusly:

a group of 3,500 chickens tasked to chase down and catch foxes which are faster, stronger and smarter than they are…As currently staffed, the SEC would have trouble finding first base at Fenway Park if seated in the Red Sox dugout and given an afternoon to find it.

Then, Bush decided to remove the Uptick Rule, which made it possible for speculators and the arbitrageurs (remember them?) to literally send a company into bankruptcy using the open market, or at the very least, scare the hell out of everyone by causing the stock price to drop just a few pennies above zero.

Starting to get the picture of what's going on here?

Wait, there's more:

In 1999, Bill Clinton Signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, allowing mega corporations, wielding ungodly sums of money, to merge together and begin speculating in the derivatives and OTC market. It also made the now famous credit default swaps legally impossible to regulate.

Adding to the volatility of the market, oil prices were soaring to never before imagined heights, due mostly to the speculative activities of institutions fomenting higher prices with their 10s of billions of capital and low margin requirements:

world consumption of oil at 87 million bpd was far exceeded by the "paper market" for oil, which equals about 1.36 billion bpd, or more than 15 times the actual market demand.
www.reuters.com...

A study of the oil market by Masters Capital Management was released which claimed that speculation did significantly impact the market. The study stated that over $60 billion was invested in oil during the first 6 months of 2008, helping drive the price per barrel from $95 to $147 per barrel, and that by the beginning of September, $39 billion had been withdrawn by speculators, causing prices to fall.
www.thetimesonline.com...

And that's not even the half of it, but the rest, as they say, is history.
Here we are, slumped over, bailing out the very institutions that caused this mess

www.abovetopsecret.com...

And if the plutocrats keep it up, this is a nice summary of where we're going: www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Kaytagg



Yes, you are right interest rates have nothing to do with lending and people purchasing housing, and giving false signals to investors.

all the tax dollers i pay would be nice to have back too. and as much as i want everyone else to pay taxes because i have to pay taxes, i dont think you should pay taxes, or rent and utilities for that matter. im sorry man.. good luck. and thank you.

I thought the exact same thing when I was in the military. In fact, I was almost dumbfounded the first time I found out they took taxes out of my pay. It seems like they would just pay you less since it's basically going right back where it came from.

If you think about it, it's kind of like paying yourself to work.

When I was in the military, I made roughly $1000 a month. Of that, I actually got about $700 of it after taxes.

This is one reason I get so annoyed with the "support the troops" stuff. They aren't supporting the troops, they are just supporting the war and claiming it's about the troops. If it was actually about the troops, then they wouldn't treat them like crap.

During basic training, I figured it up once and I was making less than $1 per hour. After basic it went up due to not working so many hours in the day, but it was still below minimum wage. The excuse of course is due to barracks and the mess hall etc, but you actually still have to pay for the mess hall, it's just a little cheaper than most meals(like $1.25 if I remember right). Out in the field it's free though. And I usually kept a few #4 MRE's around if I got hungry.

I think they should put congresses pay on the military pay grade. Start them out at E1 pay, and then maybe they will start paying people what they are worth.

I think the reason they take taxes out is because they can quote the number before taxes and it makes it seem like they are paying you more than they really are.

[edit on 6/29/2009 by badmedia]

Originally posted by badmedia
I thought the exact same thing when I was in the military. In fact, I was almost dumbfounded the first time I found out they took taxes out of my pay. It seems like they would just pay you less since it's basically going right back where it came from.

If you think about it, it's kind of like paying yourself to work.

When I was in the military, I made roughly $1000 a month. Of that, I actually got about $700 of it after taxes.

This is one reason I get so annoyed with the "support the troops" stuff. They aren't supporting the troops, they are just supporting the war and claiming it's about the troops. If it was actually about the troops, then they wouldn't treat them like crap.

During basic training, I figured it up once and I was making less than $1 per hour. After basic it went up due to not working so many hours in the day, but it was still below minimum wage. The excuse of course is due to barracks and the mess hall etc, but you actually still have to pay for the mess hall, it's just a little cheaper than most meals(like $1.25 if I remember right). Out in the field it's free though. And I usually kept a few #4 MRE's around if I got hungry.

I think they should put congresses pay on the military pay grade. Start them out at E1 pay, and then maybe they will start paying people what they are worth.

I think the reason they take taxes out is because they can quote the number before taxes and it makes it seem like they are paying you more than they really are.

[edit on 6/29/2009 by badmedia]

Agreed e1 pay for congress can you imagine I would die laughing

Originally posted by Gateway
reply to post by SPC_D

 

I agree, I despise all taxes...

Your tax dollars go to help those in need, like those on welfare or social security; go to help hospitals that need funding when generous donors are nowhere to be found so that you may recieve emergency medical care; go to the public school system so that your children may recieve a better education - despite the bureaucrats in the school system taking more than their share - because not everyone can afford private school; go to pay military, police, fire fighters, EMTs, ambulances, and others who are there to ensure your health and safety; and they go to pay judges and court systems so that you may get justice for wrongs against you.

If there were no taxes, there would be none of these public services. Your house would burn down in a fire; your kids would not get a decent education; there would be no hospital for you to go to in an emergency; no one would care at all about your safety from those seeking to hurt you and your loved ones; and if you lost your job there would be nothing to help you get back on your feet.

Therefore, taxes serve a purpose.

What is wrong with the system is that the bureaucrats need to take a pay cut, stop voting themselves raises, and stop taking more than their share. I loathe seeing school district officials driving around in their limos, while knowing teachers who aren't payed enough to even feed their families. I also loathe knowing that the officials in the state government have fancy cars and mansions, but the rest of the state is so bankrupt that the governer has cut welfare and college grants! Those are the kind of things that I loathe about taxes. It's not the taxes themselves that upset me, but those who abuse the system.

Originally posted by MoonChild02

Originally posted by Gateway
reply to post by SPC_D

 

I agree, I despise all taxes...

Your tax dollars go to help those in need, like those on welfare or social security; go to help hospitals that need funding when generous donors are nowhere to be found so that you may recieve emergency medical care; go to the public school system so that your children may recieve a better education - despite the bureaucrats in the school system taking more than their share - because not everyone can afford private school; go to pay military, police, fire fighters, EMTs, ambulances, and others who are there to ensure your health and safety; and they go to pay judges and court systems so that you may get justice for wrongs against you.

If there were no taxes, there would be none of these public services. Your house would burn down in a fire; your kids would not get a decent education; there would be no hospital for you to go to in an emergency; no one would care at all about your safety from those seeking to hurt you and your loved ones; and if you lost your job there would be nothing to help you get back on your feet.

Therefore, taxes serve a purpose.

What is wrong with the system is that the bureaucrats need to take a pay cut, stop voting themselves raises, and stop taking more than their share. I loathe seeing school district officials driving around in their limos, while knowing teachers who aren't payed enough to even feed their families. I also loathe knowing that the officials in the state government have fancy cars and mansions, but the rest of the state is so bankrupt that the governer has cut welfare and college grants! Those are the kind of things that I loathe about taxes. It's not the taxes themselves that upset me, but those who abuse the system.

now that is to say you cant use the stuff i am provided you can't live where i live, your kids can't go to my kid's schools. and your family can't receve the same health care I get. not unless you wan't to give away your life to the military for me taxes have no reson I do not use public programs or doctors and nither do alot of military so why am I paying taxes again? ita like im paying myself to get taxed it makes no since at all.

[edit on 29-6-2009 by SPC_D]

reply to post by MoonChild02


Taxes don't go to pay for those things at all.

Income taxes as is the topic of this discussion only go towards paying interest on the debt.

I'm not going to get into the topic in huge detail, as it's a topic in itself. But go ahead and track where the money actually goes. Not where they say it goes.





[edit on 6/29/2009 by badmedia]

reply to post by badmedia


I might do just that sift threw the codex de tax.. any way all this thread was suposed to be about was why is the goverment taxing your tax dollars? it's like they make all this tuff up as they go and no one know wtf is going on any more.

Originally posted by SPC_D
My kids don not go to public schools nore do they use public hospitals or any public anything so why should I pay for you when I can barley pay for mine? and why is the goverment taxing taxes?

I was replying to the person saying they despise all taxes.

I do understand what you mean, though. However, if they didn't tax you, then everyone who works for the government wouldn't have to pay taxes. That means not just military, but teachers, principals, fire fighters, police, EMTs, members of Congress, governers, judges, etc. would be exempt from taxes. It's bad enough that the president is exempt from taxes for the rest of his life, but if everyone in government positions were tax exempt, then everyone would want to work for the government, and there would be no pay for anyone!

Furthmore, if your house was broken into, wouldn't you want the police to investigate? If there were a fire in the area, wouldn't you want the fire fighters to get to it before it reached your house?

Also, you and your family not using public services is a rarity. Not everyone can afford to go to private school. Not everyone can afford to pay for a trip to the hospital. The government makes up for this by taxing everyone, so that they don't have to do investigations on who doesn't use what services. That would just mean more paperwork for them. So, they just simplify it by making everyone pay just in case someone who doesn't go to a public hospital all of a sudden has to go to one.

One solution for your problem is that maybe those in government positions shouldn't be taxed for the service they provide. I'm sure that if you took that kind of a measure to Congress, they'd pass it without any problem, because they'll do anything to get out of taxes.

Originally posted by MoonChild02
Furthmore, if your house was broken into, wouldn't you want the police to investigate? If there were a fire in the area, wouldn't you want the fire fighters to get to it before it reached your house?

all taken care of by the on post Military Police and fire dept. and I don't pay for privet school its just the cilivian kids can't go to school on post it is for military only just like the px and the food stoe on post all military only the avrage joe can't come on post and get stuff from our stores or use our bar or golf course or day care or any thing that is on post outher than the taco bell and buger king they can use that.

and I agree every one that work for the goverment should not have to pay taxes just pay us a bit less. It is kinda like lieing to us look at all this money you make and than Boom we tax the crap out of the money the tax payers gave us to pay you in the first place!

reply to post by SPC_D



Dam, when did they start charging for on post rent and utilities? When I left Hood in '07 they where just getting ready to start the utilities test by getting an average monthly range. Then once implemented, if you went over you monthly utlilities alotment you would pay extra. That was only in the new housing because the majority of the older on post houses did not have meters.

"....when did they start charging for on post rent and utilities?" (they have always charged you for rent. In your LES it still showed that you recieved your aloted BAH and that it was in the pretax deductions made by the Post housing office.) Are they doing it differently now?