Larry <noone@home.com> writes:
> "Your Name" <your.name@isp.com> wrote in
> news:i5nfj0$hv8$1@lust.ihug.co.nz:
>
> >
> > "Michelle Steiner" <michelle@michelle.org> wrote in message
> > news:michelle-820195.15565901092010@news.eternal-september.org...
> >> In article <rmkt76lffbjd1eg8p3ilp2dsfnfr9r9pbc@4ax.com>,
> >> DevilsPGD <Still-Just-A-Rat-In-A-Cage@crazyhat.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Interesting that VAT is included but Canadian taxes aren't
> >> > disclosed until much later in the purchase process.
> >>
> >> A lot depends on local laws. As I understand it, advertised prices
> >> in the UK must include VAT. In the US (and maybe in Canada), the
> >> advertised
> > price
> >> is the pre-tax price. That makes sense for the USA because the sales
> >> tax varies by state and sometimes by city. It may be the same in
> >> Canada.
> >
> > In New Zealand we have a flat 12.5% Government Sales Tax (GST) rate,
> > which is soon going up to 15%. :-(
> >
> > In advertising they are meant to state whether or not the prices
> > include GST. If the advert doesn't say, then it is taken that GST is
> > included (which could be at the business' expense if they left it off
> > by mistake).
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> Just curious....Do they tax you for making money or just spending it?
>
> Here in South Carolinastan we pay Federal Income Tax up to 35%, state
> income tax up to about 7% when we make money. Then, when we spend money
> we pay the state 6% sales tax, like your GST, plus 1 to 3% local
> city/county sales taxes on top of that. If you take into account that
> the price of the product has the taxes of the manufacturer, distribution
> organizations and merchants buried into it, plus your own making and
> spending taxes, the taxes on everything in South Carolinastan is about
> 90% of your paycheck.
I realize you are insane, but just in case our correspondent from New
Zealand doesn't realize it:
a) almost no one pays anything close to 35% of their income to the
Federal Government. In fact, the 35% is the _marginal_ tax rate on
adjusted income past $372,951.
The actual average percentage of income paid in federal tax (for those
who pay more than nothing) is under 13%.
(See, for example,
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html )
b) Even if your 35% wasn't roughly three times too high, and even if
you simply added together all the percentages you list, you get
nowhere near the 90% figure you mention.
c) You actually leave out FICA, which is a substantial federal tax,
but still doesn't get you anywhere near 35%.
>
> We're very good at burying taxes. Our cable TV and electricity bills
> from other corporations have a 4% "franchise fee" added to them, paid to
> the city for allowing the cable and electric companies to have a monopoly
> on selling us service. Our electricity bills have a "tax" forced upon us
> to pay for the street lights in the neighborhood down the street.
> There's no light in my yard, but I pay for theirs. Fuel taxes for petrol
> is 34.8UScents per US gallon, about 4 litres. It goes on and on......
>
> There's a "flat tax" movement but it will never happen as it would reduce
> our taxes from 90% to 10-15% and starve bureaucrats at all
> levels.....impossible.
d) A truly flat federal tax at 15% would give the federal government more
money from income tax than they get now.
So the reason this isn't happening is more complicated than that it
would starve bureacrats.