Hopefully this doesn't fall under the category of politics, and hopefully this can stay politic free. So let's see. Today I was talking to a friend about different areas in the world, and he was saying, they have it good there, but their taxes are so high. Now this expression always annoyed me. The fact is, as American's we are taxed really damn high and none of us take note. I always do this break out explaining to people that guess what, we are taxes as much as everyone else. Since this is an international board, I figured I would take a stab and see if my theory is indeed true. I am going to use the NY/NJ/CT area as an example of how high our taxes are as a whole: - Income Tax is 28% of your gross salary (based off of Avg HHI) - Purchase tax in NYC is 8.375,of NET salary. So if you add 34% to 8.375 to get back to gross taxes, then the tax rate is really 11%. - Social Security 6.2% of you gross salary - Medic Aid Tax is 1.45% of your gross salary - The average home tax for NY/NJ/CT for home owners is roughly $8,000 Net ($11K gross)The average HHI for the NY/NJ/CT is $90,000 Gross, so roughly 8.18% So the total taxes an average NY/NJ/CT person pays is 55% of Gross income. That is not taking into account taxes on Gas and other hidden taxes we don't even know about. So the next time you want to say, well France has x,y and z, but they get taxed out the ass, think that we are getting taxed at 55%. Now for international people, what is your total Gross tax rate taking into account everything?
Honestly, taxes are just something I bend over & take like everyone else, largely because I feel lucky to not be living in a cave or questioning whether or not everyone on my block will be moving to one within the next year.
You talking sales tax? That only holds if someone saves nothing. And I don't necessarily agree with your math, either. Social Security is only off of the first $110,100. IIRC this is the second time you've bitched about home ownership... It has its perks, but it has its costs. In this case, owning a home has a tax on it. Get over it. It's not our fault that you're experiencing financial hardships and/or don't agree with how things are. If it's that much of a problem, run for office and fix it, just don't bitch about it on a forum that was created for toys.
Wow, rage much, read little. 1- I was saying people always say how low our taxes are, I am just saying they are not as low as everyone pretends. 2- Well, I don't know about you, but most people save little to nothing. Most people actually live in debt. If you can live in the tri state area on a HHI of $90K and still save money, then you are 1 incredible person. 3- If you read, I used Average HHI (90K) as my base, so it is under the $110,00 you wrote. 4- You can write off taxes, but what you get back is minimal. If your house is paid off, your tax write offs are very small. I love when people on here get angry over ridiculously small shit and rage to all hell without reading. I wasn't complaining. I was informing and asking if anyone where they lived ever broke it down this way to see in comparison. Btw, I not experiencing financial hard ships, and in case you didn't notice, this is the General Discussion thread. You know the thread where you can talk about General stuff. Not the toy thread. You know, the one where you talk about toys. Glad I made your day brighter.
Taxes are low, here on Cybertron, which is the up side of having no functional government. Down side is the constant strife between petty warlords, lack of enforceable order, and lack of things to talk about at the barbershop.
Taxes here are high, but the core issue is how much public services lack over here due to corruption, which again, I know corruption happens in other countries, just that over here (Brazil) it became a joke even on internation newspapers many times for how public this corroption went and how nothing was done about it. Now on a more related for issue - import of products - basicallly companies pay so much to bring itens from outside here which it is still cheaper to buy over the internet from some other place and hope your package is not tyaxed (yep, they randomly taxe packages because there are too many to inspect nowadays) and anything but books ishould be taxes on 60% the product price... plus shipping. This including toys and hobbies.
Taken straight off the Australian Tax Office website. Taxes make my head hurt trying to understand. I know I pay a fair whack in taxes, though. Individual income tax rates Residents These rates apply to individuals who are Australian residents for tax purposes (see Residency - what you need to know for more information). Tax rates 2011-12 The following rates for 2011-12 apply from 1 July 2011. Taxable income Tax on this income 0 - $6,000 Nil $6,001 - $37,000 15c for each $1 over $6,000 $37,001 - $80,000 $4,650 plus 30c for each $1 over $37,000 $80,001 - $180,000 $17,550 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000 $180,001 and over $54,550 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000 The above rates do not include the Medicare levy of 1.5% (read Guide to Medicare levy for more information). Sorry, the formatting went all wonky. So, the highest income bracket pay around 30 - 45% of their total income in tax. Lower tax brackets pay about 18-25% of their income in tax. If you are on a government benefit you are taxed, but only if you earn over $6000 per year from employment. For your information, our Medicare Levy is the tax we pay for our socialised healthcare. It's 1.5% of gross income, but you only pay it if you earn over 55k AND if you have your own private health insurance you are exempt from paying it. We also pay GST, or Goods and Services Tax, on everything except for fresh food (produce, meat that hasn't been cooked or cured, etc). We don't have a tipping custom here, though. Everything we buy/order or any service we use has the tip built into the price and our minimum wage is high, so tipping isn't a necessity for people to survive, here. I think we pay a lot in taxes, and our goods and services here are very expensive. We do have a lot of social programs though. I think the balance we have is ok, if somewhat vulnerable to abuse.
I don't understand your reasoning for purchase tax...is it supposed to be sales tax? Your math with that hurts my head. Pulling out a pay stub and opening it up after not having looked at it in a long time (sweet, I got a raise!) I noticed some things that you may not be allowed/don't have/forgot about/elected not to share. My health, dental, and vision benefits are removed from my wages before being taxed. I think I can allocate up to 10% to my retirement before taxes but I am not sure on the percentage. I can also allocate money to a TSP but I am not sure if that is before or after. So with your standard % you give for the common three (Income, SS, and Medicare) I am sitting at 35.65%. But hey, I make under your average HHI and combined with my wifes income we are in the 15.7% tax range. So that drops me to 23.35%. The State of Wisconsin adds on 6.93% so the people in Madison and Milwaukee can support their...nevermind. So I am at 42.58% before any voluntary expendatures like property and luxuries. Groceries are not taxable in Wisconsin unless it is precooked or whatever so the only things I need to survive that are taxed is clothes and gas. I suppose my smokes too. But wait, there is more! I claim low on my taxes so they take a lot out of my check. I have no idea how those dependent deductions work with exact math stuff but the basic idea is that my wife and I have 5 kids. I claim low and when tax filing time comes the government looks at me and sees how little I make with how awesome I raise my kids and they give it all right back to me. It was even better when I was downrange. The Government would take taxes out of my check but my next check would have my previous checks taxes paid back to me. When tax time came my income was counted for the head of house hold thing but couldn't be counted for taxed income so the Government saw three kids with little taxes paid and netted a huge return. Chuck
Its very hard to compare taxes between countries as u cant compare apple to apple. We get taxed here around 10% for mid income, average income is low internationally but cost of living also is relatively low. A better way to compare with real world application is the big mac index. Rep to tricky on this; tfw used to be useful for learning stuff! So u really gotta look at what goes in taxables-average income-cost of living when comparing taxes between countries.
The only thing I know is that I have to put aside 38% of my pay aside and that our sales taxes = 5% + 9.5% (applicable on the 5%). In the end, with all the deductions and stuff, I actually lose only 23.9% of my salary.
Well, we can make this easy. I know in most first world countries with first world problems(u like how I made first world problems all to important there lol) there should be averages of taxes paid compared to income. If we find these we could easily see who is the "screwer" and who is the "screwee" (those are technical terms). Something has to be out there that compares average income and taxes paid. Go hunting later if I have time or maybe am much more inclined. Here is my two cents, find things to deduct and get yourself a good accountant. Solves a lot of problems. Also if u loan the government any of your money that u do not have to, simply put you are an idiot.
I actually have an amazing accountant that takes the bite out of my taxes. But I am surprised how many people I speak to that do not have the same things. My example is a general example. Of course there are write offs and such, but being uneducated when I was younger, I was unable to take care of my taxes the way I do now. So the govt was getting a huge chunk of my money. The sad thing is, I find that most people luck into a good accountant because they don't really know what they should be getting back in taxes. So the equation I actually have here is actually correct for most people. I find the more money you make, the better you know how to protect that money. Which is kinda sad.
