Tax Time: Here's Your "Receipt" - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Cynthetiq · 04-15-2008, 03:53 PM

Quote:

View: Tax Time: Here's Your "Receipt"
Source: CBSNews
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Tax Time: Here's Your "Receipt"

WASHINGTON, April 15, 2008
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(CBS) Tax season became a little more taxing this year, with the average person spending more than a day and more than $200 collecting, calculating and compiling those numbers for the tax man, according to a report based on Internal Revenue Service figures.

As CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports, once the deadline's been met, how does the money end up getting spent?

In total, the average tax bill this year tops $13,000, and most taxpayers have no idea what the government is doing with their cash.

"They might know in some broad sense that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on this or that, but they have no idea really what their money is going for," says taxpayer advocate Jim Kessler.

Kessler's non-profit group has prepared a "receipt" - an itemized breakout of government spending.

What's Uncle Sam is spending the most taxpayer money on? Defense.

The average American household is paying $2,761 for defense in 2007, or put another way, enough to cover 12 car payments for a new Honda Accord.

Social Security is nearly as expensive: $2,663. That's about enough to heat and cool a home for a year.

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Read the report "What You Paid For."

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The average household is paying $19 for the office that tracks hurricanes, about the cost of a fancy umbrella. And just over $12 for National Parks, the cost of one bleacher seat at D.C.'s new Nationals Park.

Some items seem like relative bargains: $313 for education; $99 for farmers; just $62 for all federal law enforcement.

But another big ticket item is interest on the National Debt. For this, the average taxpayer is forking out more than $1,000 this year.

"That's like taking $1,000 and lighting a match to it," Kessler said.

Some government spending is paid for with pocket change. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which monitors toy safety, costs just 29 cents a year. And the White House? Even less. It costs just 18 cents.

But nothing about government is free.

The tax man himself at the IRS costs the average American family $49 a year - about the same price of the software you'll need for next year's taxes.

Quote:

View: What You Paid For
Source: Thirdway
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What You Paid For
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Jim Kessler, VP for Policy and Tess Stovall, Policy Advisor
RE: What You Paid For

If you wrote a check for more than $13,000, you would want to know exactly
what you were buying. As is it turns out, $13,000 is about what the typical working age taxpayer paid to the federal government in 2007. That's a lot of money for anyone, but for a taxpayer earning about $64,000, that's one-fifth of all earnings. Yet nearly all taxpayers have absolutely no idea how that money is spent. At best, they may see a pie chart which shows in broad categories how the federal government spends its $2.9 trillion budget.

This document-essentially a receipt-shows exactly what the typical working age taxpaying household gets for their money in dollars and cents. The question taxpayers and policy makers should ask is "Are you satisfied?" Do you think spending priorities should change or stay the same? Do you think you're getting what you and the country deserve for your payment?

On Tax day I got home and saw a bit on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and saw this come up. I decided to look it up and read more about this.

The question I'm posing in this thread is if you had to pay for it upfront as a lump sum this $13,000, would you be more or less scrutinous of the programs and expenditures?

I scrutinize anywhere my money goes. I'm happy and a carefree spender when I am the spender. But the moment I am asked to give it up to someone else upfront, I want to know where and how it will be spent. I won't give it up without some responsibility or accountability. Ask me for a lump sum of money with no information on how it will be spent, I'm less inclined to scrutinize how the monies will be spent.

inBOIL · 04-15-2008, 04:38 PM

I don't know about tax time reciepts, but I'd like to see something like this attached to funding proposals when they go on the ballot. Especially when they're funded with bonds.

Ustwo · 04-15-2008, 04:49 PM

Move tax day to election day.
Remove automatic withholdings so you had the write the check.

Instant anti-tax and spend revolution.

filtherton · 04-15-2008, 05:27 PM

I don't need to see a list of how the government spends tax money to know that such a list would probably piss me off. Then again, I don't know that the information is all that much of a secret, except for the money we spend on things that are secret.

If such a list came out, I predict that:

The people who posture like taxes are bad would bitch and moan about how horribly the government was spending their money, how much better they could spend their own money, and how the government has no right to take something that it didn't earn. The ones who spend $80 a week (externalities are free with fill up) filling up their Denalis, which they drive by themselves 30 miles to work every day wouldn't see the irony in accusing the government of irresponsibly consuming unearned resources.

The people who posture like taxes are good would rationalize the list thusly.

The rest of the people would be divided about what they didn't want to fund and what they did, but being reasonable people, they would acknowledge that while taxes aren't always fun, they are the price of living and doing business in a semi-functional country.

JumpinJesus · 04-15-2008, 08:13 PM

With the amount of money I send to the federal government, it will probably turn out that I only paid 3 cents to tip those rounds with depleted uranium and I don't think anyone will care that I only donated 3 cents to the fuck-up-our-troops campaign. I'm not in the bigger-spender camp and I'd probably get a seat behind a pillar at that taxpayer appreciation dinner.

Ustwo · 04-15-2008, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

The rest of the people would be divided about what they didn't want to fund and what they did, but being reasonable people, they would acknowledge that while taxes aren't always fun, they are the price of living and doing business in a semi-functional country.

Would these be those same people living on credit and such currently?

stevie667 · 04-16-2008, 02:31 AM

I don't get american taxation. It just comes straight out our pay here (unless your being naughty and not telling them about it)

Do you just get paid everything, then have to pay some to the government at the end of the year? Does that mean you have to put money into your account to keep tucked away (does the government charge tax on the interest you make too)? What happens if you just spend it all?

filtherton · 04-16-2008, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Would these be those same people living on credit and such currently?

Living on credit, like you? No, I thought you were of the "taxes are always bad" variety.

BadNick · 04-16-2008, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevie667

I don't get american taxation. It just comes straight out our pay here (unless your being naughty and not telling them about it)

Do you just get paid everything, then have to pay some to the government at the end of the year? Does that mean you have to put money into your account to keep tucked away (does the government charge tax on the interest you make too)? What happens if you just spend it all?

You either have to have it taken out weekly, monthly, "as you go", or you can make quarterly estimated tax payments. Otherwise, if at time of filing you owe more than a certain rather small percentage of your total tax due, you have to pay a penalty. If you spend it all and can't pay, you go to jail unless you negotiate a payment schedule.

04-15-2008, 04:38 PM	#2 (permalink)
inBOIL I have eaten the slaw	I don't know about tax time reciepts, but I'd like to see something like this attached to funding proposals when they go on the ballot. Especially when they're funded with bonds. __________________ And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

04-15-2008, 04:49 PM	#3 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Move tax day to election day. Remove automatic withholdings so you had the write the check. Instant anti-tax and spend revolution. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

04-15-2008, 08:13 PM	#5 (permalink)
JumpinJesus Junkie Location: Chicago	With the amount of money I send to the federal government, it will probably turn out that I only paid 3 cents to tip those rounds with depleted uranium and I don't think anyone will care that I only donated 3 cents to the fuck-up-our-troops campaign. I'm not in the bigger-spender camp and I'd probably get a seat behind a pillar at that taxpayer appreciation dinner. __________________ "I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

04-16-2008, 02:31 AM	#7 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	I don't get american taxation. It just comes straight out our pay here (unless your being naughty and not telling them about it) Do you just get paid everything, then have to pay some to the government at the end of the year? Does that mean you have to put money into your account to keep tucked away (does the government charge tax on the interest you make too)? What happens if you just spend it all? __________________ Office hours have changed. Please call during office hours for more information.

04-15-2008, 05:27 PM	#4 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	I don't need to see a list of how the government spends tax money to know that such a list would probably piss me off. Then again, I don't know that the information is all that much of a secret, except for the money we spend on things that are secret. If such a list came out, I predict that: The people who posture like taxes are bad would bitch and moan about how horribly the government was spending their money, how much better they could spend their own money, and how the government has no right to take something that it didn't earn. The ones who spend $80 a week (externalities are free with fill up) filling up their Denalis, which they drive by themselves 30 miles to work every day wouldn't see the irony in accusing the government of irresponsibly consuming unearned resources. The people who posture like taxes are good would rationalize the list thusly. The rest of the people would be divided about what they didn't want to fund and what they did, but being reasonable people, they would acknowledge that while taxes aren't always fun, they are the price of living and doing business in a semi-functional country.