Do you think Americans are over taxed?

 

Do you think Americans are over taxed?

There is a general feeling in America that the average person is over taxed; taxed too much.  What is too much?  Like beauty, taxes are in the eye of the beholder.

No one likes to pay taxes, but in America almost everyone feels taxes are too high.

According to the “Citizens for Tax Justice” – American are not over taxed. The average middle class American paid about 14% in federal income taxes (IRS) in 2008.  That is extremely low in the world of western democracies.  The total of all taxes paid, federal, state and local in America are about 25.8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), again the lowest of all 30 western democracies except Mexico and Korea.

 “Citizens for Tax Justice”

 “Taxes continue to take up a relatively small part of American economic output, according to data compiled by Citizens for Tax Justice from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Census. For example, in all but two OECD countries, taxes make up a larger percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than in the United States.”

 

Overall Taxation

“In 2005, total federal, state and local taxes in the United States were 25.8% of our gross domestic product, ranking 28th among the 30 OECD countries. Only Korea (25.6%) and Mexico (19.0%) had lower taxes.”

The above graph hasn’t changed much as there have been no tax increases in the time period between 2005 and the present.

America could be the new Mexico in a few years, with 80% working poor if we don’t change our ways and begin to pay for what we want.

So why do most Americans feel over taxed?  One reason is their wages have not gone up over the past 20 years.  All productivity gains have gone to the top 1%, who have seen their incomes go up over 250%.  CEOs now make 400 times the average worker wage and 20 years ago they took just 100 times the average worker wage – that is a 400% increase for doing about what they always did – very little to earn their obscene compensation.  See what do CEOs really do?   

So the feeling we are over taxed isn’t supported by the facts.  We certainly aren’t over taxed when compared to the rest of the democratic countries in the world.

The BIG lie from Republicans that Americans pay 40% of their income in taxes isn’t true.  But these liars will not stop lying. 

We do however misuse our tax dollars in ways no other democracy does; we spend fully 48% on war and the military.  If we reduced this we could actually spend money rebuilding America and creating jobs.

This big lie is costing America each and every day we don’t stop borrowing and begin to tax ourselves for the programs we want.  We are putting our spending on the backs of our children and grand children, shame on those who support this dishonest behavior. 

We now have a $12 trillion national debt that goes up each minute.

It is clear the Western European countries believe in their shared responsibility to each other (“Love your neighbor as you love yourself” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) and tax themselves to provide services to all citizens.

SOLUTION:

• Raise the income tax to 50% for all income over $150,000 per year.
• Limit lifetime Capital Gains to $5 million
• Tax gross corporate revenues at 2%

 

These three actions would balance the budget. 

The facts will not stop the selfish and greedy from saying Americans are over taxed.  For these people any tax at all is too high. 

Certainly FOX News and their commentators will continue the lies.

Please email your elected representative and tell them what you think.

Am I right?  What do you think?

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