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It’s tax time. Doing my taxes is a conflicting experience. Most of the time I am due for a refund. Yet, this means that the government has had my money, not giving me interest, for a whole year. This is quite the gimmick / setup, because it’s made to look like you should be happy that you’re getting money back. In fact, that they take more than you owe should bother you.
What’s the solution? We could move the filing date to November 2, and eliminate withholding from our paychecks. That would eliminate the thought that somehow I’m getting money from the government, and keep taxes low because people would be able to vote on taxes.
What I like better is the idea of eliminating income taxes altogether, and going for a nationwide sales tax. That way we’d only be taxed on what we’d buy, companies could hire for the exact price the people would get paid, and savings would not be taxed.
What do you think?
It also attacks the black market. Criminals pay a sales tax just like anyone else, whereas they clearly do not pay a tax on illegal income.
This is the argument that has seen VAT in the UK rise to 17.5% (and it is at similar levels in mist of the EU). This offsets our income taxes, but there is no sign that income tax will dissappear any time soon… or indeed anytime ever.
What I dislike about tax time, is the self-employment tax. For small businesses, such as mine and dh when he built saddles FT…it was a killer paying 15% of all our income. That was 4 years ago, I don’t know what the percentage is now. Dh always has several money-paying projects on the side though that amount to enough to be income. Thankfully we get a refund so the outgo isn’t so obvious.
I’m curious as to how quickly the Democrats will cut our child tax credit in half now that they’re holding the reins…when they do, ouch!