It’s always talked about in the media as if everyone cares, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a normal person complain.
I’m fine paying what I pay, but I reserve the right to question the quality of services they pay for.
Property taxes bug me a lot. The tax has gone up over 10% each of the past 3 years. It’s adding a lot to my mortgage.
Texas sucks. Everyone talks about how much it has a low cost of living and minimal taxes because there is not a state income tax, then the homeowners insurance rates go up or get cancelled and you can count on property taxes going up 10% annually. We bought our house in 2016 and the amount has gone up 10% every year since, not including the other bond issues which increase the tax rate on top of the existing rate.
I pay quite a bit in Denmark, but used to live in the US.
I pay more taxes now (not THAT much more but definitely more). However I see what I get for my taxes here: healthcare, bicycle lanes, cheap and very good trains/metro/ferries/buses everywhere, etc., and sooo much support for people. It makes me proud to pay taxes here, even though of course I always want more in my pocket and I want more for my money.
In the US I hated the taxes because I paid more than rich people (as they pay nearly none) and I didn’t feel like i got a lot from them.
No problem with taxes as a concept, but I hate how the US uses tax money
healthcare, bicycle lanes, cheap and very good trains/metro/ferries/buses everywhere
Danish healthcare is cheaper than US healthcare, and bicycles/public transit are also cheaper than the car centric US transportation infrastructure. If the US adopted socialized healthcare and sane transit, we’d pay less taxes not more.
I agree, if the US also used their tax dollars as intelligently as the Danish government does as well.
Seems like a pipe dream, but I hope at least parts of the US become more modern in those ways in my lifetime
Yes though only because of the noticeable lack of benefit I get from paying tax such as piss poor infrastructure, lack of affordable health care, virtually no public transport etc.
I only cared when I was poor and living paycheck to paycheck.
No (US). Those who loudly complain are generally conservatives who can’t understand how marginal tax rates and brackets work.
If you get within earshot of a Republican, chances are you’ll hear complaints about “damn taxes” within five minutes. So to a certain set of people, definitely everyone they talk to is constantly complaining about taxes.
When I was starting out and making little money, the taxes I paid were definitely cutting into my ability to live. I think instead of “standard deductions” we should have real minimum incomes. If you are under the minimum income for your location, you don’t pay taxes.
Now that I am at the end of my career, I think it’s stupid that my taxes are not higher. If I could have given young me some of the money I am keeping now, I would have had a much better life overall. I obviously can’t do that now, but I can give someone else the same breathing room.
If you are under the minimum income for your location, you don’t pay taxes.
Then what if you start earning more, suddenly have to pay taxes and end up getting the same or even less than before?
That is not how taxes work. If you earn the minumum income or less, you pay no taxes. If you are above the minimum, you pay taxes on the amount that surpasses the minimum only, so there is no way of getting less if you earn more.
I am perpetually shocked at how many people don’t understand marginal tax rates, and I truly think ignorance of them is used to confuse people about how wages work.
We have a saying in my country: there’s no point in complaining because nobody listens. I mean we are all paying so what’s the point of moaning about it
I have heard folks distantly related to me talk like the state tax rate was pretty damn important when selecting which part of the United States to move to.
They were the sort of people that would sit ( in their living room in New Zealand ) and watch fox news and go on the engineered logical and emotional weirdcoaster that sort of media offers up. This is some pretty niche viewing for folks in my country.
Did their viewing habits affect their opinion of property taxes?
I’m not sure. They could have been describing that to me, but because the local body funding mechanism we have here is called rates rather than property taxes I could have easily got that confused in with the state tax discussion.
I was kind of astounded that a spreadsheet of tax rates would play a significant part in a decision of where you were going to live.
I became more aware of how much tax I was paying when I became self employed because instead of paying a bit out of each check like a w2 worker I have to pay it in lump sums quarterly.
I run a low overhead medical practice so I don’t have a tax cheat llc, I take the standard deduction every year and as a result my taxes are pretty much the same as they ever were. Even though it’s roughly the same amount (slightly more actually, now that I cut out the overhead of medical systems stealing 30-60% of my labor) there’s something psychological about paying the amount in a lump sum
I think paying taxes is important and I want to do. However I feel conflicted about spending this money because what I feel paying taxes are important for are generally not what my tax dollars fund, and increasingly so. I want to pay and gladly will for community enrichment, better public schools, access to healthcare, infrastructure like roads, power lines, sewers, moving away from fossil fuels, better handling of trash and recycling programs, rehabilitation programs for criminal offenders, mental health programs including interim programs like community supports and mobile programs that exist in between outpatient and inpatient, social welfare programs that give people access to housing, food, electricity, etc
But instead my taxes pay for these things increasingly less. About 20% of my taxes go to military and defensive spending and while I do think some amount needs to go to this I think it’s absurd. Most countries spend 3-5% on defensive spending. Even China, the second highest after the US, spends 6%.
So I don’t resent paying taxes but I do resent how much when roughly 1/5th of that goes to defense contractors to launder billions from taxpayer and Israel for genocide. I also resent that my tax burden continually increases despite making roughly $60-70k a year while the services around me continually decrease.
So I don’t resent paying taxes but I do resent how much when roughly 1/5th of that goes to defense contractors
Don’t forget to also resent how much money sneakily goes to defense contractors (or other megacorps) by way of every other government office. It depends on the agency, but the majority of the federal workforce is not US government employees, it’s contractors, so taxpayer funds go to an army of middlemen before trickling down to the people doing the work. Taxpayers end up overpaying for labor, and the laborers make less money and with less job security than if that tax money just went directly to the worker.
In addition to this I didn’t even touch upon the resentment towards stupid bullshit outside of defense
Like I like in Pennsylvania and the amount of tax dollars that are spent propping up fossil fuel industries. Like I want to spend money on developing energy infrastructure, of course. But I want that money to go into putting power lines underground (my power goes out every six weeks minimum and 2-3x a year for over 24hours, sometimes over 72), nuclear, solar, hydroelectric, etc
But what do I get? Fracking, propping up the coal industry, etc. fucking ridiculous.
Road quality decreases and yet no public transportation expansion. It’s garbage if you have a car and if you don’t it’s impossible if you’re outside of a city.
So that stuff too
In California, yes. Moreso because taxes keep rising but services keep dwindling.
You’re fucking high, California income taxes are very well structured. At $880k my taxes after deductions were like $30k.
Personal income, and even business income, absolutely agreed (my personal for the year was $10k or just shy of 10%, my corp tax was about $900, not bad at all). It’s the other nickel and dimeing CA is famous for. Fuel taxes, property taxes because home values are now sky high, DMV fees, and then all your municipal taxes, and then all your varied county/municipal sales taxes, and plenty of others I’m not thinking of right now, and of which added together are exorbitant compared to other states. Now, don’t get me wrong, you certainly get what you pay for in terms of great weather and good quality of life compared to other states, as well as many other benefits, but let’s not pretend for a second that California isn’t a fucking expensive place to live. I was born and raised here, I’ve lived elsewhere, and I am not leaving, but absolutely California is pricey.
Cool story bro, move to Texas A.K.A. Fuck around and find out how high taxes get.
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