Talk:Taxation in the United States
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..."The income tax forms the bulk of taxes."...
There are two possible interpretations of that; one is true for most people and one is false. It could mean that the largest portion of the average taxpayer's burden is the income tax (true for most people, but not all), or it could mean that the largest source of revenue for the US government is the income tax (which is false). Please calrify. --LDC
This needs to be put on a different page. I'm not sure what, though. Perhaps United States/Taxation (!!) or perhaps Taxation in the United States or perhaps United States--Taxation. KQ should know the answer. :-) --LMS
"Taxation in the United States" sounds like a good article title to me, and of course it needs to have sections (or subpages) of its own for different historical periods). --LDC
The best available information about U.S. total revenues is probably: http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0601.pdf Which does indicate that income taxes are the bulk of Treasury revenue. It's fine with me if it moves... Ray Van De Walker
Sure enough (though Social Security is pretty close); I guess my impression was out-of-date (I know that in the past, individual income tax wasn't the biggest source of revenue--I'll have to look that up). --LDC
Well, please do move it then. (See naming conventions.)
According to that document, p. 5, the estimate for the next year is about half. Perhaps we can be more specific, anyway. I think the subject of this article is payroll taxes. It ignores all the "hidden" taxes and tariffs that are also paid by various entities (and passed on to the consumer), such as business taxes and taxes on alcohol.
Also, it needs to be clarified if the subject of the article is U.S. federal government taxation, or any taxation that occurs within the borders of the U.S.
Finally, the percentages here need to be dated (was that all last year, or what?) --LMS
Haha, no, "of course" I don't know the answer. "Taxation in the United States" sounds good. It could also go into more on sales tax, also the "non"tax on gasoline which is part of the final price and helps to offset the cost of new road construction. --Koyaanis Qatsi
Are the percentages and ceilings quoted in this article current? I thought the Social security tax was raised to over 7% more than a decade ago. some please confirm and correct.
They were the last month when I paid them... At one point Social Security was 7.6%, I seem to recall, but it was deducted up to a smaller maximum salary. Don't forget the hidden part of the tax: The same amount of tax is -also- paid by the employer, so you're losing a net of 12.4%. You're being silently screwed by that, because the employer could use that for your salary/wages- it's part of the same human-resources budget item. R.G. Van De Walker
Florida does not have a state personal income tax but it does have a crporate income tax. I'me changing to a more appropriate state for the example.
Shouldn't this article at least mention non-income taxes, such as tarrifs and exise taxes?
-Ben
This article is so inaccurate that it should be removed from the Wikipedia. I don't understand why people who don't understand it want to write an article on a topic this complex anyhow, but since you obviously do, will you people PLEASE move this to some sort of a 'project' page where you can fiddle with it to your hearts' content without misleading the people who might actually look at this article in the meantime trying to learn something about taxes? And then not bring it back here until you get at least one tax expert to review it for gross misstatements that could lead readers into criminal violations of the tax law? -- isis 18:24 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)
- The article seems to be going in three directions at once. On one hand, it's a description of how taxation works in the US, in a largely political context -- i.e. here is how the government collects revenue. On the other, it seems to also try to be a description of how the tax code affects the individual taxpayer. And then there's the rant in the middle about the unfairness of the ISO provisions of the AMT.
- I suspect that you're really only objecting to the second and third points, and not the first, which strikes me as perfectly reasonable for a public work-in-progress.
pity the IRS cites case law and not the actual laws requested. oh well. (As a Canadian, I have no stake one way or the other; I'm just amused at the total mess the US has gotten itself into[1] (http://www.smartpros.com/x40086.xml)[2] (http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9120)[3] (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031017-024617-1418r) =) I also wonder whether the wikipedian so quick to repeat what the IRS says read the heterodox material at all. I find WPians tend to lack that objectivity...see fluoride, in which I put more effort 'cause fluoridation can happen to me.)
Tax Protestors
It seems to me that all those described in this section are people working out weird ways to avoid tax. They are all tax evaders pretending to be tax avoiders. A tax protestor is not this. A tax protestor is one who refuses to pay tax in order to protest something e.g. the liberation/invasion of Iraq. A true tax protestor files his/her tax return correctly working out the tax due and then refuses to pay some or all of that tax. What say you all? Am I right that these so called tax protestors are really tax refuseniks? Paul Beardsell 18:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure that's not the standard definition of Tax Protester. I've always heard the term used to describe people who dispute the legality of the tax, rather than people like Thoreau who acknoledge a tax's formal legitimacy but refuse to pay as an act of moral or political protest. Personally, I agree that these guys are really tax evaders who have convinced themselves of a convenient delusion, but the term "Tax Protester" really should refer to them.
- A quick Google search shows the entire first page to be composed of these evasion-style Tax Protestors, rather than of any other sort. For more on this, see the Tax Protestor FAQ: http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html, from which the following quote from the Seventh Circuit comes:
- "Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest. 'Tax protesters' have convinced themselves that wages are not income, that only gold is money, that the Sixteenth Amendment is unconstitutional, and so on. These beliefs all lead--so tax protesters think--to the elimination of their obligation to pay taxes." Coleman v. Commissioner, 791 F.2d 68, 69 (7th Cir. 1986).
- Ben 18:43, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Haha! Thanks for the link to the FAQ (http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html) from which I quote below. He specifically only addresses one of the two types of "tax protester":
- What is a "tax protester"?
- The phrase "tax protester" is commonly applied to two types of people:
- People who refuse to pay taxes in order to protest policies of the federal government that are supported by those taxes (such as people who refused to pay taxes during the Vietnam War); and
- People who refuse to pay taxes or file tax returns out of a mistaken belief, firmly held, that the federal income tax is unconstitutional, invalid, voluntary, or otherwise does not apply to them under one of a number of bizarre arguments, most of which are described in this FAQ.
- This FAQ uses the phrase "tax protester" in the second sense, referring to people who refuse to file returns or pay taxes because of ridiculous and far-fetched arguments against the validity or application of the tax laws. (See the above explanation of the purpose of this FAQ.)
Paul Beardsell 04:27, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Federal Withholding Tax
Since there is no mention of Federal Withholding Tax in the current version of this article, I'm going to go ahead and add something in. Why should the current tax article mention direct withholding but this article on U.S. taxation does not? Zzyzx11 03:51, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
State sales tax
I came to this page looking for information on the cross-state issues related to state taxes:
- What happens when someone lives in one state an works in another, or moves around a lot, or has more than one residence.
- What happens when purchasing goods from other states? E.g., over the internet?
- 1. It varies by state. Say you live in Massachusetts (a state with income tax) and work in New Hampshire (a state with no income tax). You'd still owe income tax to Massachusetts. If you work and live in two different states with income taxes, you may owe tax to both states. However you'll receive a credit for tax paid to other jurisdictions, meaning you won't be taxed twice for the same income. 2. When you buy goods from other states, there is no sales tax if the business has no presence in your home state. However you may still owe use taxes to your home state. As people buy more stuff over the Internet, expect states to crack down on people who don't pay use taxes on big ticket out-of-state purchases.
- Yep, you're right. All this stuff should be in the article. This article could use a revamping. Rhobite 21:05, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)