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Comment by oleganza | Hacker News Reader

Another reason to not miss a day on the job: half of your income is confiscated by your government for the "social good" + massive regulations prevent a lot of people from getting work, so it's much harder to change employer or start a business than would otherwise.

And of course, 80 bln dollars printed per month raise prices making every USD holder poorer everyday.

Definitely, we need more welfare mess on top of it.

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Just to correct you a little, its nowhere near half of the your income. Marginal tax rate is 39.6% for a single filer for income in excess of $400k. Of course the majority of states have sales tax, and there's other taxes (state, property, petrol, etc) down the line as well. For some people, it may approach a total of 50% taxation, but that is a tiny tiny minority. And its not like most people making over $400k actually pay that tax rate on all their income, given that we have exceedingly generous deductions and other classes of tax (capital gains, which is a favorite of the rich) that are significantly lower than the marginal rate on standard income.

I'd like to know more about regulations preventing people from working (especially those in the top tax bracket).

I, for one, enjoy our decent roads, overall stability, and "social good" programs. I pay a pretty decent amount in taxes, but its really never bothered me one bit.

> Just to correct you a little, its nowhere near half of the your income. Marginal tax rate is 39.6% for a single filer for income in excess of $400k. Of course the majority of states have sales tax, and there's other taxes (state, property, petrol, etc) down the line as well. For some people, it may approach a total of 50% taxation, but that is a tiny tiny minority. And its not like most people making over $400k actually pay that tax rate on all their income, given that we have exceedingly generous deductions and other classes of tax (capital gains, which is a favorite of the rich) that are significantly lower than the marginal rate on standard income.

Math, personal experience, and observation tells me otherwise -- for a human living in California, at least. Between Federal income tax, Social Security tax, State income tax, the various (un)employment taxes, sales tax, excise taxes of one type or another, property tax, etc. I suspect that most people give 1/2 of their income to one government entity or another.

Whether that is an acceptable amount is another matter entirely. That's a normative judgment call. But the raw math seems to indicate a massive haircut.

And don't get me started on the financial burden of the friction of the tax system (aka paperwork and complexity).

(Disclosure: I am an international tax lawyer and it is my job to think tax laws are evil).

50% is as much or more than the percentage of tax that most Western Europeans pay and US government entities seem to provide less services compared to their European counterparts. Perhaps part of the reason is the huge portion of the Federal Budget that goes toward military spending?

Military spending isn't exactly a large part of the GDP in America either. And much of that spending is to support international treaty obligations that go toward ensuring the security of Allies in west Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region, so perhaps your comparison of west European budget isn't entirely apples:apples here.

> "Another reason to not miss a day on the job: half of your income is confiscated by your government for the "social good""

Taxation is not spread evenly. The portion of the population most at-risk (i.e., lowest levels of health insurance, lowest levels of paid leave, etc) pay little to no taxes. Tax rates only become high in populations that can afford to take a day off (i.e., good health insurance coverage, paid sick days, etc).

So no, the people who are afraid of missing a day of work do not have "half their income" confiscated by the government.

In fact, I'd be interested in seeing anyone in the US who pays an income tax rate of 50%. This seems like an interesting feat, considering the highest marginal rate is 40%.

You could probably get there in NYC, which has both a high state tax and a city tax.

He is not saying "income tax rate is 50%". Please pay attention. The half of the income comes from the estimates of how much you pay taxes in total. Including property, sales tax, various fees and tariffs, and, most importantly, portion of corporate and other taxes that the consumer pays as part of the prices of goods and services.

We haven't had any significant change in inflation after QE.

We need more stimulus on top of it!

Half? If anything is half, it's half the budget is going towards war and military welfare.

No, war is mostly funded from printed money. No amount of taxation would fund such a waste of capital.

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