It’s always talked about in the media as if everyone cares, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a normal person complain.
Yes. Even with extra withdraws, I always owe. So it’s more of an annoyance. Not to mention I don’t like how my tax dollars are being used. If the US wasn’t such a dumpster fire, I might feel differently.
If it were being used responsibly I’d advocate for higher taxes, but here in the US taxation is theft.
I was glad that when I started earning a lot more money, I was being taxed more on that higher portion of the earnings. In theory, this means that I am supporting more good things. I am disenfranchised, however, with the fact that clearly large corporations and the mega rich are not paying their fair share, and that often my tax pounds are being spent in direct opposition of my very existence (anti trans policy, reversal of climate policy, etc).
I care about taxes, a lot, but I don’t care about being taxed a lot, as long as the heavy taxes I face are being used in a good way. If a small dip to my quality of life or excess earnings means that overall the quality of life in the country gets better, I’m super happy to see it.
I care a little bit. I work as a welder and am on the verge of completing a four year apprenticeship. My pay is going to shoot up, so I need to plan to save money for tax day.
Right now I have my employer taking an extra $15 out of each paycheck to give to the IRS. It used to be enough to receive a refund. But these past four years as my pay increased, that refund gets smaller and smaller.
I’m going to have to get my employer to take a bit more out of each paycheck. Tgat way I wont owe anything at the end of the year.
I pay quite a bit in Denmark, but used to live in the US.
I pay more taxes now (not THAT much more but definitely more). However I see what I get for my taxes here: healthcare, bicycle lanes, cheap and very good trains/metro/ferries/buses everywhere, etc., and sooo much support for people. It makes me proud to pay taxes here, even though of course I always want more in my pocket and I want more for my money.
In the US I hated the taxes because I paid more than rich people (as they pay nearly none) and I didn’t feel like i got a lot from them.
No problem with taxes as a concept, but I hate how the US uses tax money
healthcare, bicycle lanes, cheap and very good trains/metro/ferries/buses everywhere
Danish healthcare is cheaper than US healthcare, and bicycles/public transit are also cheaper than the car centric US transportation infrastructure. If the US adopted socialized healthcare and sane transit, we’d pay less taxes not more.
I agree, if the US also used their tax dollars as intelligently as the Danish government does as well.
Seems like a pipe dream, but I hope at least parts of the US become more modern in those ways in my lifetime
Not really. In the UK for hourly employees the employer handles all that before you even get your paycheque. When it’s payday you have a big breakdown in the slip on what’s gone to various taxes and stuff, but you skip all of that and just look at the number that says what’s going in your bank.
If I was self employed, or won the lottery or something I would probably be a little pissed off about the concept.
I’d care a hell of a lot less about the amount if it felt like it was being used for anything other than padding rich assholes pockets. I want my taxes to feed and help people, repair and maintain roads, and subsidies public transit. I guess I’m saying I want my money to help my community and the vulnerable, not sit in some rich fuckers bank account while a homeless settlement I drive by daily grows, tent by tent.
Yes. As taxes are put on the price of my labour which I sell to the owing class, I do not just loose out on the surplus value, which the owning class extracts from the value I created with my labour, but also on part of the value which the capitalist uses to buy my labour. Taxes should be abolished and the surplus value should be used to improve society. This is only possible if the owning class is abolished and socialism is construced of course.
This reads like another libertarian reinventing taxes and government as usual.
It is called scientific socialism and was invented over 100 years ago.
Do the exercise. WHO collects the surplus value? And then as that is applied to society to enjoy…
You’re describing a society with a government collecting money for the commons.
I suspect your argument is more to do with who/what is being taxed how much, and then where to apply said tax money.
Yes, the property taxes in my city are the highest legally allowed and the services we receive are dogshit.
Be mad at the way the collected taxes are spent of course. Paying tax is the cost of living in a community or societies. Unfortunately we as peons don’t get as much control over where it is spent, but definitely should have a say.
Not historically, no. Were my taxes always used properly? Probably not, but I believed in the overall system generically.
But since Trump’s second term I’ve cut back significantly on Federal taxes I pay (I still pay State). I’ve converted some FTE-related income to 1099 and ceased paying quarterly and I’ve claimed 10+ allowances on W4 income to reduce taxes withheld.
I’m on a payment plan of $250/mo with the IRS and they most recently told me to just keep paying monthly as best I can.
Thing is, I owe far, far, far more than 100x that. So I guess they’ll just never get all their money. I don’t care.
I care more about where they are spent. My local government is spending it far better than my federal government. If it was half my income and was spent in ways that lower the cost of living and improve quality of life, then I’d have no problem with that.
If I get a tax cut, I think, cool, at least I choose where this money goes, because I actually do give some to non-profits that benefit society. Tax amounts are not something which determines how I vote, I gloss over it in the news, it’s just incidental that the anti-worker parties want to raise my taxes and spend them in worse ways.
Last year I owed 10k USD. I certainly cared then.
Overall I don’t think about it until I do my taxes. That said, I’d happily pay more if everyone else got healthcare, good infrastructure, and a clean environment.
Nope.
They’ll take what they choose to take. It’s 2025. Social mobility doesn’t exist, our votes are meaningless, and economic policies change with the seasons.
I have no agency, so it’s not worth the stress.
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The vast majority of tax in most countries is paid by those with higher incomes. In the US the top 1% of earners pay more than 40% of the tax collected and almost all the tax (97%) is paid by the upper half of earners.
In the UK the numbers are a little different, but tell the same story (top 1% pays around 30%, top 10% pays around 60% of all tax collected).
So while I know you mean relatively and not absolutely it’s still worth spending at least one minute to consider how much of the tax burden is actually shouldered by the wealthy.
I come from a Scandinavian country and I’m ALL in on redistribution, free education, free healthcare etc. But let’s not have politics ignore the facts.
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In the UK there is a crazy band between £100k and £125k where for each two pounds above £100k you lose one pound from your personal allowance (personal allowance is £12.5k).
The effective tax rate for this is 60% then it carries on at the regular 40%
Always has struck me as odd.
Never paid this rate myself because I don’t get paid enough. Apparently it disincentives doctors from doing overtime.
I recruit some people into this band. It always amazes me how much people care about whether they are paid £100k or £110k. The difference is about than £72 a week when they’re already getting paid over £1,300 a week (after tax).
Ego.
