I mean really, does anyone know the answer to this question? What’s the point of the income tax? There are other things the government can tax to raise money. Why tax the one thing that makes people better off?
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I mean really, does anyone know the answer to this question? What’s the point of the income tax? There are other things the government can tax to raise money. Why tax the one thing that makes people better off?
Every paycheck I see a significant chunk of my hard earned income cut for tax purposes and each time I think of what I could have done with the money. I could have paid some of my student loans or a portion of my rent. Working part-time and in school full-time every penny counts when budgeting. However, it is my duty as an informed citizen to help those less fortunate then I. One cannot refuse to pay income tax because it is illegal. If one decides to go ahead with it anyway they will be bombarded with IRS fines and potential legal actions. We’ve all learned the importance of living within our means. The lesson however has been absent for centuries in our federal government. The federal government especially under the Bush administration and past presidents has collect trillions of dollars in debt. State governments are required to balance their budgets each year but the federal government does not so we borrow and borrow money from the wealthy to continue running the nation. So what ends up happening is that we the citizens end up paying for the interest of these loans with our income taxes. A large portion of our income taxes goes to social security, social services, debt and defense spending. The government works like a compulsive credit card user. It manages to pay the minimum payment so its credit score doesn’t show any delinquencies. We poor so much money into government programs but the cost at times outweighs the benefits. We need a more efficient government; we need to cut unnecessary expenses so we can get the biggest bang for our buck. Almost every agency in the government needs reform, for instance education we spend so much money but our children are falling behind kids in third world countries. I’m not saying spend less on education but use the money wisely there is no way that our kids are far behind. Let me get back to my original point, we pay taxes to help other and to help our nation prosper.
[...] Week 2 Blog 2 (comment) By alem0016 http://williamwood.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/why-do-we-pay-income-tax-again/#comment-174 [...]
Thanks for the comment, my question wasn’t why do we pay taxes. My question was why do we pay *income* tax? In some sense the question becomes what is the most efficient way to pay tax. Is it really the income tax?