Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Tax Freedom (Hah!) vs. Work Freedom: Who pays what?
Several rightwing organizations have again this April celebrated/mourned Tax Freedom Day. This year's Tax Freedom Day was calculated to be April 11. Giving kudos to the TeamBush flowing tax cuts, groups such as Citizens for a Sound Economy cheered that this was the earliest Tax Freedom Day (the day we have to work to pay-off our federal taxes) since 1967. Just the kind of thing to make the average Dittohead jump for joy!
But that's far from the whole picture. A look at the above article would lead a reasonable person to believe that America's wealthy are shouldering more of our nation's spending than ever before, or at least more than their fair share. And that's the point of such misleading numbers.
In fact, income taxes are a pretty poor measure of the tax burden that regular working people bear. According to a report from the people at AskQuestions.org (a really neat site that everyone should explore), "(t)he short answer is this: you and I pay the taxes that rich and powerful people ought to pay, but don’t."
This article is a fine synopsis of our current misdirected tax system and one everyone should read. There are several issues at hand, the largest of which is the percentage of our available income that average people pay each year. As the conservative statistics imply, the wealthy indeed pay more income tax than the average person. But average folks pay 40% of their total take in all taxes (including state and local and Social Security), where the wealthy pay only 27%. That is because local and state taxes take a bigger bite from lower income people than the wealthy and beacuse our FICA taxes only take from the first $88,000 or so a person earns.
That means if your check is less than 88K you pay FICA on your whole income, and because it's used to pay for Social Security that's OK, because it's fair. However, if you make $88,001 you pay the same in FICA as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.
Another reason that regular folks pay more tax than we used to is because corporations pay far less to our national coffers than they once did. In 1965 they paid 34% of taxes but by 2000 that rate was down to 18%-- a gap made up by the rest of us.
I could quote this article at much greater length, but please read it because its just a fine, concise analysis with lots of good graphs.
One of the great accomplishments of our economy in the last few decades has been our productivity. Quite simply, American workers do more with less than almost any other nation--but in the quest for ever increasing stock profits and bloated CEO salaries, that just isn't enough. And it is because of this very efficiency that we are in a jobless recovery, one which pays handsome dividends to shareholders while shedding jobs to increase profits. As those of us still employed know, we are increasingly being asked to do even more, to take on more responsibilities and the tasks of others who were 'downsized.' And vacation days, sick time and insurance and retirement coverage get whittled down each year.
So now let's move then to the other side of the yearly calendar when we contemplate just how well off the average American is under TeamBush. As a play on Tax Freedom Day several groups have calculated Work Freedom Day. This measures how much more the average American works compared with workers in other Western industrialized democracies. Turns out another way to look at our vaunted efficiency is that Americans are brutally overworked.
By the measure of Work Freedom Day, compared to the average American the average Dutch worker would quit on August 22, the German on September 10. Our Anglo brethren work much harder, quitting on October 25.
Quality of Life is more than economic efficiency unless your primary income comes off of the backs of others. This study notes that "University of Warwick Professor Andrew Oswald, who has done a prodigious amount of research into the work/life balance, highlights an international study which shows that 46% of Americans wanted to have more time at home with the family, 36% of Britons but only 18% of the Dutch. I wonder why?"
I do too.
Several rightwing organizations have again this April celebrated/mourned Tax Freedom Day. This year's Tax Freedom Day was calculated to be April 11. Giving kudos to the TeamBush flowing tax cuts, groups such as Citizens for a Sound Economy cheered that this was the earliest Tax Freedom Day (the day we have to work to pay-off our federal taxes) since 1967. Just the kind of thing to make the average Dittohead jump for joy!
But that's far from the whole picture. A look at the above article would lead a reasonable person to believe that America's wealthy are shouldering more of our nation's spending than ever before, or at least more than their fair share. And that's the point of such misleading numbers.
In fact, income taxes are a pretty poor measure of the tax burden that regular working people bear. According to a report from the people at AskQuestions.org (a really neat site that everyone should explore), "(t)he short answer is this: you and I pay the taxes that rich and powerful people ought to pay, but don’t."
This article is a fine synopsis of our current misdirected tax system and one everyone should read. There are several issues at hand, the largest of which is the percentage of our available income that average people pay each year. As the conservative statistics imply, the wealthy indeed pay more income tax than the average person. But average folks pay 40% of their total take in all taxes (including state and local and Social Security), where the wealthy pay only 27%. That is because local and state taxes take a bigger bite from lower income people than the wealthy and beacuse our FICA taxes only take from the first $88,000 or so a person earns.
That means if your check is less than 88K you pay FICA on your whole income, and because it's used to pay for Social Security that's OK, because it's fair. However, if you make $88,001 you pay the same in FICA as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.
Another reason that regular folks pay more tax than we used to is because corporations pay far less to our national coffers than they once did. In 1965 they paid 34% of taxes but by 2000 that rate was down to 18%-- a gap made up by the rest of us.
I could quote this article at much greater length, but please read it because its just a fine, concise analysis with lots of good graphs.
One of the great accomplishments of our economy in the last few decades has been our productivity. Quite simply, American workers do more with less than almost any other nation--but in the quest for ever increasing stock profits and bloated CEO salaries, that just isn't enough. And it is because of this very efficiency that we are in a jobless recovery, one which pays handsome dividends to shareholders while shedding jobs to increase profits. As those of us still employed know, we are increasingly being asked to do even more, to take on more responsibilities and the tasks of others who were 'downsized.' And vacation days, sick time and insurance and retirement coverage get whittled down each year.
So now let's move then to the other side of the yearly calendar when we contemplate just how well off the average American is under TeamBush. As a play on Tax Freedom Day several groups have calculated Work Freedom Day. This measures how much more the average American works compared with workers in other Western industrialized democracies. Turns out another way to look at our vaunted efficiency is that Americans are brutally overworked.
By the measure of Work Freedom Day, compared to the average American the average Dutch worker would quit on August 22, the German on September 10. Our Anglo brethren work much harder, quitting on October 25.
Quality of Life is more than economic efficiency unless your primary income comes off of the backs of others. This study notes that "University of Warwick Professor Andrew Oswald, who has done a prodigious amount of research into the work/life balance, highlights an international study which shows that 46% of Americans wanted to have more time at home with the family, 36% of Britons but only 18% of the Dutch. I wonder why?"
I do too.
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