Taxes done right?

[Platapus]

I hate paying taxes.

Just the other day, I was driving on some really nice and well maintained roads, passing our Fire Department that has the latest Emergency equipment to help save our lives; just down the road was our police station where we have a pretty good number of police to keep the crime low in my neighbourhood (which helps keep the property values good); About 5 miles a way we have a nice hospital with a state of the art trauma ER (been there way too many times); Nestled in the trees, I could not see the modern schools (not as good a school system as possible, but pretty good) where the kids gets some learnin'; more visible is a our big library which does so much more than just store books on shelves.

Wistfully, I wished I could skip work and go to one of several parks, where they have really done a good job melding nature with recreation. I thought ahead to that evening when I would stop off at a local market knowing that the State and Country inspect the local farms to make sure the food I feed my family is not hazardous.

While at home I can get a glass of water knowing that it is safe for my family to drink and that after the meal I can sit on the throne knowing that "that" also will be taken care of safely. Exactly 6 miles from my house is our sanitation landfill where our non-recyclable trash is buried. Unless you read the sign, you can't tell it is a landfill. It really helps keep things clean. Speaking of recycling, the county has a really good recycling program which is efficient and more important, easy to use. The easier recycling is made, the more people will want to use it.

Yeah, I don't like paying taxes either. I wonder what I am getting for my tax dollars?

[August]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I wonder what I am getting for my tax dollars?

You get camouflage uniforms for the military that don't work. You get 10 Federal agencies doing the same job. You get "Bridges to Nowhere" and "Big Digs" that are marvels of political cronyism, cost overruns and shoddy construction. You get billions and billions wasted on countless expensive boondoggles by a government that increasingly views itself as more important than the people it is supposed to serve.

Still feeling so happy about paying taxes?

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by August

You get camouflage uniforms for the military that don't work. You get 10 Federal agencies doing the same job. You get "Bridges to Nowhere" and "Big Digs" that are marvels of political cronyism, cost overruns and shoddy construction. You get billions and billions wasted on countless expensive boondoggles by a government that increasingly views itself as more important than the people it is supposed to serve.

Still feeling so happy about paying taxes?

I'll add to August's list.

@ Platapus,
If you were from Ore-gone, you'd get "Cover Ore-gone" (OR version of obamacare), the computer system doesn't work at all!!
I'd throw in Portland taxes, but I don't live there. They have some great ones.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Guys like Ross Perot out there, and "we" got guys like Rummy in charge. sheeple.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Well I'm jealous

Originally Posted by Betonov

Thats a low tax rate if I ever saw one.

Let's see...on April 3rd I picked up a paycheck for $31.35 and paid $2.40 in tax.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

Let's see...on April 3rd I picked up a paycheck for $31.35 and paid $2.40 in tax.

Just fund my tax report.
I made €12 000 (aprox.) and payed €2 120 in taxes last year.
Highway robbery I say

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by August

Still feeling so happy about paying taxes?

It is not a perfect system but it sure beats the alternative.

[August]

Originally Posted by Platapus

It is not a perfect system but it sure beats the alternative.

So how do we keep the taxes for the things we really need but eliminate the waste and fraud that pisses everyone off to the point they don't want to pay?

[nikimcbee]

I vote we throw the tea in the bay. Has anyone thought of that? I'm going to dress up as an Indian too.



...oh. Lost in translation.

[swamprat69er]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

I vote we throw the tea in the bay. Has anyone thought of that? I'm going to dress up as an Indian too.



...oh. Lost in translation.

We need another 'tea party' on both sides of the 49th.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by August

So how do we keep the taxes for the things we really need but eliminate the waste and fraud that pisses everyone off to the point they don't want to pay?

Wish I had the solution.

[Skybird]

Contributing to communal needs is not wrong at all. However, I ask why I must give the money not to the needs I see reasonable to support, but to politicians far away who then use my money to do with it what THEY want, and that is most often not what I want to see being done with my money. Instead I see them turning the world into a mess. Not only do they do with my money what I do not wish to support, but what I indeed want to support often remains unsupported.

Political parasites are classical men in the middle, squeezing themselves in where they are not needed and people could have a direct causal linkage from themselves to the cause to which they want to contribute. So why are they there, why do we tolerate them! They are maggots living in the tasty centre of the spam. A healthy idea would be to squeeze them out and to swat them.

Why is this? Why should these antisocial parasites being paid by me for a service which is no service, and which consist of wasting my money while stealing my money form the causes I want my money being spend on?

That new autobahn link they want to build north of my home - why should I pay for it when I do not support it? It would destroy a precious and beautiful nature reserve that is used by citi8zens in my town for recreation, relaxation, picnic and bicycle bike tours. Or should I pay for projects that take place 700 km away from me and to which I am not linked in any way? Why should I pay for policies that I totally oppose and would prefer to see being shut down and destroyed? Why should I allow my money being spent on issues on which i do not even get asked, and when I oppose them, they get realised and spent money for nevertheless? Migration policies, environmental policies, antisocial wellfare spending frenzies?

Why should I allow somebody else to determine in my place what is good for me and what not? Is money I own or earned, indeed my moiney if pöoltivcians claim the right to steal it from me in the name of "higher interests", that just mean nothing else but THEIR interests? Why am I not left the freedom to decide myself and to assess myself what is of interest worthy to be supported? Why should I accept their definition of higher interest? I don't! Not at all!

No, I insist on the control over my money being left to where it belongs: leave it to me. What I see as reasonable to support I will support. What I oppose, I will not support. You can ask me to contribute. But I deny you any right to demand a contribution from me - and even preset its amount for me in advance.

But that would mean an end to the sun kings' spending parties, where they waste money that is not theirs, for ridiculous causes, and with shining, glorious project incompetence of theirs. Just see how politicians jump from one ressort to the next, and in each new field they claim to be the ideal office holders, knowing it all. The result is monumental messups like the new Berlin airport BER, immigration policy that is a total fail and is enforced against the majority's will, or the creation of structures of organised crime and tyranny.

Never allow politicians to decide over monetarian issues, never allow them to create money, to print it, to define its value and to regulate it. And never never never allow politicians to collect money and spend it like they want. NEVER.

If you think about it, this means the end of the politician as the term is being understood today. without being able to spend money, politicians would have no function.

Since I started to read about these things, I have never, not a single time, read a single argument in defence of mandatory tax payments that could morally survive. It'S a criminal act of oppression where the one group of people claims the right to steal property from the others and use it as they like. As I see it it is a surviving element of the medieval feudal mentality where kings thought of peasants as their private property.

In business, I prefer costs for erecting and financing infrastructure wanted by traders and businessmen to be calculated into the prices of products that get transported via this infrastructure. Leave the control over the construction to those who are affected by it: businessmen. It is in their interest to negotiate best possible deals over the costs, to keep the price impact for their products as low as possible and thus remain attractive for customers. Much better than bureaucratic control of tax money that gets sunk in ever growing stupid projects where they spend money that is not theirs, and where more money is needed to maintain the hilarious superstructure of bureaucracy that bites of its share from the financial cake. For what...? Well, you tell me! Cut back state ministries and bureaucracies by 90% minimum. Prohibit life-long professional political "service". Nobody should be allowed to make his living by being a politician. And never allow anyone to become a politician who benefits more from being a politician than he contributes to the communal good.

People in a place can organise themselves. They can build themselves, and define their interests and options themselves. They do not need more and more political and bureaucratic superstructures over them, pushing them onto their knees and telling them what they owe to politicians, and what they should do and what they are not allowed to do, and that the money they earn by their hand's work to over the half belongs to politicians and political parties and bureaucracies deciding for what it is to be spend (and last but not least that is to spend it for themselves and their power interests).

You think the age of feudalism and kings and peasants is over? Think again. You are wrong.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Just fund my tax report.
I made €12 000 (aprox.) and payed €2 120 in taxes last year.
Highway robbery I say

It'S more. Add to it the taxes like VAT and so on, that are not liksted on your payroll. when you fill your car'S tank. Go to movies. Use a copy machine. Pay for your new Id card when the old one became invalid.

Then, mandatory insurances. In Germany, you cannot legally work without having some of them.

In Germany at least, the ordinary employee and worker must allow to have more than half of his income being stolen from him. Legally.

Believe me, its true. Over one half.

[Betonov]

I was refering to income tax.

Medical insurances and social insurance are payed by my employer. Probably my wage wouldn't be higher without them, only his takings so I don't care about that.

VAT and road tax and the rest of them, those are voluntary. Don't want to pay a road tax, don't own a car, don't want to pay VAT, don' buy things.

I don't mind paying taxes. The new road and fibreoptic line on my street was payed by taxes. My successful asthma treatment was payed by insurance and taxes, the paramedics that helped my mother were payed by taxes and the ambulance was payed by taxes.
Only the taxes being used for the upkeep of the retard-fest called the government are the ones that I have a problem with

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Just fund my tax report.
I made €12 000 (aprox.) and payed €2 120 in taxes last year.
Highway robbery I say

This poor old pensioner wouldn't mind swapping ya