Taxes, taxes, and more taxes

I had been wanting to write, but I was having difficulty finding anything I wanted to write about. There are so many good things to write about, to be outraged about, and nearly every blogger out there has jumped the gun and blogged about it. Well, thanks to Bison Survival Blog, I finally picked a subject. While he only wrote one paragraph on the subject, my sentiments seem to match his own.

About a week ago, people were all abuzz about an article estimating that nearly 50% of people will not be paying federal income taxes. One headline even suggested that 50% of us were "robbing" our neighbors.

Bison's simple answer was, "First of all, it means all those poor idiots aren’t making enough to live on. Are you envious of a fast food worker with twenty hours a week minimum wage?" And there is the gist of it. And of course, he also had a small rant about "hidden" taxes.

So lets look at some of these hidden taxes. First, lets look at gasoline taxes. Some states have gasoline tax as high as 32 cents per gallon. The feds also add another 18 cents per gallon. This means that any person who utilizes gasoline are paying this tax. At current gasoline prices, you are paying 15-25% sales tax on gasoline depending upon one's state. Any human being who utilizes a gasoline-based form of transportation (including the bus and taxis) are paying this tax. And think about the college kid who cuts lawns in the summer to earn a little cash (or worse yet, the guy who does this 40 hours a week).

Social security and medicare...if you are making any amount of money at all and pay taxes on it, you put money into your social security and medicare. For the working poor working 40 hours a week, these two taxes combined are as high as 15% of their income. On top of that, there is no guarantee that they will get anything for this tax. After all, 3 out of every 4 people who apply for social security (either because of the death of a spouse or because of injury) are denied. And not everyone lives to the now obligatory age of 67.

How about property taxes? The only person who avoids property taxes is the person who lives in a carboard box. Even if you rent, a portion of your rent not only goes towards the rental property's tax, but it also goes to pay for the income taxes of the property owner. Oh, please...do you really think he pays that out of his own pocket?

Then there are other hidden taxes we are generally unaware of. Unemployment tax, which is never shown on your paycheck. Extra taxes on certain products, like coffee or sugar. Taxes on your water, your heat, your electricity. On top of that, lets not forget the actual in-your-face sales tax....the working poor pay a greater amount of their income in necessities, such as food, natural gas for heat, or electricity for lights than those who make enough to pay federal income taxes.

The average schmuck in the United States pays an average of 35% of their income in taxes, whether they see these taxes or not. And there is no "tax return" for most of these taxes. Its all well and good, you think...we should pay our taxes....until you discover that the "taxes" that serfs paid to their Lord and Master was less than 20% of their labor. SERFS! The medieval version of slavery.

So, before you get mad at that schmuck working at McDonalds for slave wages...think about all of the "other" taxes he is already paying. And then realize that you and he aren't too far apart in your serfdom.