Who feels they too much taxes?

[Xin Lu]

Since my hubby and I just got married last year we got bumped into the next tax bracket and we owe $1000 on top of the 40k or so we already paid. I don't think there is a state that has higher taxes than California. (8.25% sales tax + 9.3% max income tax rate +45 cents per gallon fuel tax). I think everyone hates taxes...but the only tax I have a problem with paying is Social Security. The reason is that 20 somethings like us probably won't benefit from it and the government keeps on "borrowing" from the fund.

[Xin Lu]

Originally Posted by Livingalmostlarge

You're probably not calculating right. I think we barely hit 15% in federal taxes because of deductions. It is hard when married to actually hit 15%, you need to be earning like $150k+. I can't imagine how much you have to earn to pay 33% federal, mainly becuase it's graded. So like everyone else said you pay on each bracket, so to actually pay 1/3 of your income, you'd be earning a LOT!

IE, if you earn $100k but usually only pay $8-10k so 10% at most.

I'm not sure where you live, or if you have kids, but a total tax bill of 10 to 15% for 150k+ income is very little for a married couple with no kids. In California anything you make over 43k is taxed at 9.3%, plus social security and medicare is another 7%+. Then there is SDI at 0.5%. So right there you have around 10 to 15%.

Even for federal taxes,when I was single and made 76k a year I paid around 17% . When you get married and have two incomes the tax rate usually goes up when you're in the range of $150k+. Though I think maybe the original poster is trying to say that his marginal rate is 33% and not 33% of his entire income for his federal taxes.

[purplefdu]

Originally Posted by Xin Lu

I think everyone hates taxes...but the only tax I have a problem with paying is Social Security. The reason is that 20 somethings like us probably won't benefit from it and the government keeps on "borrowing" from the fund.

And to add insult to injury they send out that dang newsletter thing which gives you an estimate of what your SS benefits might be when you qualify. I pretty much assume the only reason I pay SS is to support my share of little old people...peeves me off something awful.

We always only claim 0 or 1 for exemptions and we've never owed before or since we got married. We will have to watch my earnings online this year, and will probably use my half year earnings to estimate and start making payments the other 6 months.

[ThePennyMine]

All of you complaining about your 10% tax rates really should try living in Canada for a little bit!

[lucille]

Originally Posted by ThePennyMine

All of you complaining about your 10% tax rates really should try living in Canada for a little bit!

My biggest gripe is that we really are not getting much in return out of our taxes here. At least you guys are getting healthcare. Where I live our roads are falling apart, the schools are massively underfunded, public transit hasn't been improved or expanded in a decade (it was bad then too), and last year our state tried to yank almost all of the state PBS funding. Most of these are state issues. The fed makes me rather annoyed too. I see huge sums of money thrown away in handouts to companies that are not returning any real benefit to the taxpayers or the tons of money spent on the war.

As far as federal taxes go, what we personally have been paying in has been ok. We seem to be in a sweet spot right now where deductions vs. tax bracket have us paying a small tax burden. Our state taxes are just stupid. Our property taxes are as high as they are for a more expensive house in Mpls. Yet we have pretty much no state government and everything we do have is utterly underfunded. Nobody seems to be able to figure out what they are doing with the money they do get and the state doesn't want to release a concise budget to the public. Everything gets sales tax including food. We don't have an income tax technically. But since our property taxes and sales taxes are higher that many other places were paying an income tax, just under another name and collection mechanism.

So our federal is low, our state is high and neither seem very capable of spending money well.

[Looby]

I'm with Lucille, I currently live in Canada and am from the UK so have always had pretty high tax rates. I have been happy to pay them though because of what I have got from them. I have a chronic medical condition and have been very well looked after by both the NHS and Medicare system in Canada, my partner really wants to move to the states and I am seriously concerned about how much my condition would cost me there.
Also (granted this was before I paid taxes) but my four year degree in the UK cost me only $9000, which meant that with my parents help I graduated without debt.
I can understand feeling bitter about taxes if you are not seeing much return but I honestly have no issues about what I have paid to date.

[ThePennyMine]

Yup, I'm also not unhappy with the taxes I pay... they're just so much higher than American rates! I'm very happy with the services I receive for what I pay, and would rather pay more tax and get better service than less tax and not have as much offered to me.

[wildgift]

Until I read the IRS website:
http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article...164272,00.html

Man, they really get you once your household income gets over $300,000!

Just for fun, I tried to calculate your income. Is $6,119,750 close to what you earned? Because (unless I made a mistake) that's what a couple filing jointly would have to be making to pay 33% of income to taxes.

You multi-millionaires really got it tough.

[Cziki]

I do -- I owe an additional $3K to uncle sam this month due to some investment, which went significantly down this year. I wouldn't feel this bitter if the US government isn't spending so much on the war.