Taxes, Taxes, and More Taxes
I was looking through tax information earlier, and I made some discoveries that really shouldn’t be that startling, but they were a little. Everyone knows that every paycheck, they take out taxes, social security, and medicare. Some of us are always up in arms over this, some believe that the deductions are just, and the rest are either indifferent or just oblivious and they’re just happy to be getting some money. However, little does everyone know, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to government taxes. There are hidden taxes in everything we do and buy, you just may not realize it.
We’ll start with our place of employment, and then slowly work our way out. As most of you know, along with what we pay in taxes and deductions, our employer is required to match these amounts. That is good in theory, but if you think about it, in the end you’re just getting screwed over because your employer has anticipated this, and when they hire you at whatever starting wage you agree to, they have already made sure that you are starting at an amount that compensates them for the money they’re having to pay to the government to employ you. So in a sense, you yourself are actually paying your employer’s part by being paid less, where if they did not have to pay these “fees”, you would actually be getting payed more.
Now lets move a little further out to hidden service taxes. When you buy a plane ticket, a hotel room, a sporting event ticket, or when you get a vaccination, pay for insurance, obtain a license, and use public utilities, you are unknowingly taxed. On top of regular local and state taxes, these particular services are also federally taxed. You didn’t know this though because this tax is calculated into the cost already and passed directly on to you. Most of these services are generally relatively cheap, but when you add the federal taxes to the equation, they start to get expensive.
When you buy gasoline, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and ammunition, you are unknowingly federally taxed. Gas is not as expensive as most make it out to be, and while yes the oil companies are still raking in billions per quarter, gas prices are inflated by federal tax. When you factor in how much everyone makes from the sale of gasoline, it comes close to equaling what the government makes in taxes. Alcohol and tobacco taxes are considered “sin taxes” and it is very easy for the government to make mass amounts of tax revenue by hidden taxes on these items. These 2 particular items are taxed at a higher rate then any other product in America. I like to call it the poor man’s tax, because these 2 products are mostly consumed by the middle and lower classes. From what I understand, before taxes, a 6-pack of beer that would normally cost around $5.59 would cost only $3.00 or so. If you were to buy a gun or ammunition, the general upcharge in taxes is around %10.
Certain companies and industries are taxed more or less in a government attempt to control consumer spending. This is where lobbyists come into play. All of these people lobbying for certain tax breaks or penalties imposed on different companies, are using political clout to propel their interests forward while pushing competitors back using taxes to do so. During all of this, the biggest loser here is you the consumer, because in the end, all increased taxes come back on you the consumer.
The government is using shady tactics to inflate their budgets, while slowly and quietly grabbing from our pockets in ways where most of us don’t even realize it’s happening. We are charged taxes either blindly or right under our nose, and by under our nose, they actually show us the taxes, but the burden is lessened greatly by taxing us slowly instead of in one great amount. I’m sure everyone will agree, they would have a bigger problem with paying taxes if at the end of every year, they had to write the government a check instead of getting a check back.
All I’m trying to say here is that we need to wake up and realize what is going on around us, in order for us all to make a much more informed decision. While politicians talk about cutting income taxes, the questions we should be asking them is what they plan to do about all of these hidden taxes that are truly hurting us all.
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