{"id":39540,"date":"2011-05-29T04:54:06","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T08:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/39540\/middle-class-perspective-taxes\/"},"modified":"2011-05-29T04:54:06","modified_gmt":"2011-05-29T08:54:06","slug":"middle-class-perspective-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/39540\/middle-class-perspective-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"My Middle Class Perspective on Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I never really minded paying income taxes.\u00a0 Oh sure, like everyone else, I grumble and groan while preparing those damn tax forms, but that\u2019s only because I like to bitch.\u00a0 Since our government is not a business, and must be funded by us in order to operate, taxes are a necessary evil.\u00a0 Sure I wish that our elected officials would spend the money as if it was coming out of their own pockets (or at least their kids\u2019 trust funds) instead of some magic pot at the end of a rainbow, but that\u2019s a topic for another day.\u00a0 Today, it\u2019s paying taxes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Why does increasing the tax rates on income over $250,000 put so many people in a tizzy?\u00a0 I consider my family to be as middle class as they come.\u00a0 Even when everybody was working, the entire household never made anywhere close to $250,000 in a year, let alone per tax return.\u00a0 It could be my puny middle class perspective, but I think a quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money.\u00a0 It certainly is quite a bit more than what the house I live in is worth.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s probably more than my entire life is worth.\u00a0 So I wonder, what is the big deal?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand all the uproar about taxing corporations more either.\u00a0 Back in 1958, corporations were taxed at a rate of somewhere around 52%.\u00a0 Even before Reagan\u2019s 1986 tax reform, corporations were still paying about 46%.\u00a0 Those rates didn\u2019t seem to kill them off or make them leave the country back then, so why does everyone think to raise the corporate rate, even a little bit, will do that now?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Besides, corporations for the most part only pay taxes (at tax rates that are now between 15-35%) on their profits and not every penny they make like we as individuals do.\u00a0 Almost everything needed for a corporation to exist and do business is deductible in some way.\u00a0 I would think that, since nobody likes to pay taxes, a higher tax rate on a corporation would be some incentive for them to spend their money on things that would be tax deductible.\u00a0 Like maybe jobs with decent wages and benefits?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I know I would be happy to pay taxes under the same rules as corporations.\u00a0 I would have no problem paying 38% of my income if the expenses for my housing, transportation, insurance, utilities, maintenance and other things necessary to maintain my life and be a productive American citizen were all tax deductible.\u00a0 I figure 38% of what is left over at the end of the year would basically be around $1.05.\u00a0 Heck, even at 52% I\u2019d still be looking at a tax bill of $1.41.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t beat that with a stick if I tried.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I never really minded paying income taxes. Oh sure, like everyone else, I grumble and groan while preparing those damn tax forms, but that\u2019s only because I like to bitch. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2],"tags":[865,3514,3513,543],"class_list":["post-39540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-other","tag-corporations","tag-incentives","tag-middle-class","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}