re: My son texting me after doing his taxes, maybe I’m a cynic?

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Until you break through to big money. After that your taxes go way down.

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Someone making $200k pays a lower percentage but more dollars than someone living next door making $65k pays in dollars. How does the person making 200 require more government i.e., police, fire, illegal alien costs, schools, etc., etc., just because he/she makes more money? DISCLAIMER: I do not know where the "break through" money bar stands.

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Orrrrrrr Our government can stop spending foolishly. Stop sending billions of dollars to ukraine. Stop funding all this climate change bullshite. Stop funding for gender equality research in other parts of the world. I could go on and on….

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I’m in no way disagreeing with this sentiment. I was just pointing out that your message WAS, in fact cynical, and probably discouraging for your son. “Woe is me. We’ll never make it because Uncle Sam has us under his thumb. Just give up.”

I offered a solution to OPs problem: how to hang onto MORE of your money and keep it out of the hands of the reckless spenders in govt.

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I just hate how much they take from the worker ants like us. We once beat a king's arse for that.

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Well, technically we beat a king's hired goons' asses because they taxed us without our say and forced us into a monopoly. Now we pretend to elect people to tax the hell out of us while we are forced to pay high prices for most essential products that are controlled by corporate monopolies or cartels. Who also happen to be the largest donors for the people we pretend to elect. Almost like the government doesn't matter and the results are exactly the same, huh?

Almost like government exists to secure the wealth of the few from the needs of the many.

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Someone making $200k pays a lower percentage

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Interdasting.

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Do you think it is possible to become wealthy in this country?

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Give it up. Nobody wants education or advice in this thread.

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I wish I could take the same tax deductions on my personal expenses as corporations get to for theirs. Only difference is generating revenue through W-2.

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Figure out a way to run for office.

Campaign funds can be used to pay for your family's clothes, meals, and transportation.

Don’t forget payroll tax.

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Someone making $200k pays a lower percentage but more dollars than someone living next door making $65k pays in dollars.

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This concept is not generally true. now, it is very possible for certain individuals to have higher or lower tax rates than “normal” for a variety of reasons, but every “Step” Up the brackets comes with both a higher percentage of the next dollar earned (and an identical percentage in all previous brackets where the two individual’s paths cross, again, barring something like a carry forward loss from previous years, which a $200Ker probably won’t have, Tax loss harvesting of investments ($3,000/y, not likely to move that needle), Roth vs traditional retirement contributions, to name a few. But in general, if those all line up, then the higher income pays both a higher percent and a higher gross.


Now, in terms of why:
Viewing those numbers, 13.3% tax on everyone with no exemptions would raise the same funds. 14% tax on everyone would actually raise federal revenue (or collections, depending on how angry you are at the Feds calling your work their revenue). But the bottom 50% pay a grand total of about 3.4% of their take home.

Those in power years ago decided that the burden of 13.4% (or any flat tax) was too much to ask of those making $20,000 and 30,000 and $40,000 per year, so decided to be “progressive” in the implementation of it, and they lowered the burden on those making less and made up for it (kept the target total the same) by increasing the tax on those on the top.

I'm sure that the gubbermint will spend the money wisely.

As our brother Karl M. once said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

Wow you really did map our lives out from that one simple text. Theres plenty wrong about an informal text between my son and I, I don’t normally filter every angle of a F’ing text. Why don’t you go tongue punch your boyfriend in the fart box, coward.