This beginning of this week was marked by a day that all Americans hate — Tax Day. Sure, we shell out a sizable amount of money from our paychecks (I know income tax is higher overseas — this is just for illustrative purposes), but we also pay Uncle Sam on a variety of other occasions.
John Stossel wrote an article with the same title as this post on RealClearPolitics.com to shed a little light on how often, and how much, Americans are taxed. Here’s an excerpt:
You probably don’t know how much you pay, because the government is sneaky about how it taxes you. Paying withholding taxes each pay period dulls the pain of the income tax — it’s money you earned, but it’s never in your hands — and a hundred other taxes are hidden. For my TV special “John Stossel Goes to Washington,” we followed St. Louis construction worker Bill Thurston and totaled the little-known taxes he paid daily. It started with the tax on the electricity that powered the alarm clock that woke him. Bill paid two taxes on his toothpaste. He paid a tax on water to get it into his home, and a sewer fee so it would go out. Daring to drive to work cost him more: He paid personal property tax on his truck; he had to pay sales tax when he bought it. And when he bought the gas, there was a county gas tax, a state gas tax and a federal gas tax.
At work, Bill gets stuck with local income tax, state income tax, federal income tax, Social Security tax and Medicare tax. Bill’s boss needs two employees just to calculate how much to withhold from paychecks, and while their salaries don’t go to the government (except for local income tax, state income tax, and so on), that’s money Bill’s employer can’t spend on developing his business or giving Bill a raise.
The article continues on to say that the average American pays about $10,000 in taxes per year – more than housing and health care combined. Why should government cost us more than shelter?
