De Facto U.S. Flat Tax: 40%
February 25th, 2007You godda problem wid dat?
Via: MSN:
Politicians… generally talk about only one tax: the federal income tax, which offers graduated rates from 10% to 35%.
Politicians rarely talk about what real people experience: the true maze of taxes and government benefits. If someone put them all together, we could see what our actual tax burden was. We could see who pays at the highest or lowest rates. Discussions of tax policy wouldn’t be a waste of time.
Well, two researchers did it.
In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Boston University economists Laurence J. Kotlikoff and David Rapson have found that our all-in marginal tax rate is 40%, give or take a bit. Yes, you read that right: 40%.
In the Middle Ages, tenant farmers worked three months of the year for the lord of the estate. In return, they got land, house, and the advantages of the communal defense system. Three months. And we call these people serfs. In addition, they received over 80 days of vacation a year, thanks to all the Church holidays.(See the excellent BBC documentary series “Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives”).
In grade school, we thought of serfdom as only slightly removed from slavery. Yet in my home state of Georgia, “Tax Freedom Day” is in late May. We work the first 140-odd days of the year just to pay local, state, and federal taxes…and we still haven’t done anything about the shelter itself. With roughly a third of the average after-tax middle-class income going toward housing, we can conservatively add another 90 days to reach “Shelter Freedom Day” sometime in late August. So now we’re committed to eight months labor to achieve what the peasants of the Middle Ages accomplished by their three-month contract with their lords. If those poor wretches were serfs, what term can we use to describe ourselves?
Slaves.
Maybe you can solve this high tax rate problem by casting your Vote for some honest politician. HA HA HA HA! Just kidding.
Political parties keep honest politicians from running (see Ron Paul), but if they make it through that gauntlet, Diebold sells a send line of defense (hackable voting machines).
How about Halliburton as a potential suitor when Diebold sells off its Election Systems? Or Exxon? or JPMorgan Chase? Or an off-shore hedge fund with mysterious owners?
As if it mattered…
http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffinance.myway.com%2Fjsp%2Fnw%2Fnwdt_rt.jsp%3Fsection%3Dnews%26feed%3Dap%26src%3D601%26news_id%3Dap-d8nliojo0%26date%3D20070304
“CLEVELAND (AP) — Diebold Inc. saw great potential in the modernization of elections equipment. Now, analysts say, executives may be angling for ways to dump its e-voting subsidiary that’s widely seen as tarnishing the company’s reputation.
Though Diebold Election Systems — the company’s smallest business segment — has shown growth and profit, it’s faced persistent criticism over the reliability and security of its touch-screen voting machines. About 150,000 of its touch-screen or optical scan systems were used in 34 states in last November’s election.”