So I just started doing my taxes for 2024

Wow. I think Europeans pay less and get more.

Oh, climb down off your cross, OP. We're are, most of us, in the same boat -single with no dependents and minimal deductions. What benefits do we get? Police. Fire. Hospitals. Schools. Roads and bridges. Army (men), Navy (men), Air Force (gay men), Marines (men). Libraries. Parks. Community centers.

No one likes paying taxes, but quit pretending we get nothing back...

I take it you've never driven on a public road? Visited a public park? Thought that your friends and neighbors deserve police and fire protection, even though you'd never avail of it?

I paid $20K in taxes during the year and will get around $983 back. Stop complaining and maybe talk to an accountant.

OP, are you just discovering you pay taxes like everyone else in America?

I work in a tax office and about one in twenty of our clients feels especially unique and put upon that their earned income is subject to progressive taxation. Unless you have very high earnings on your W-2, it won't be 50%, and even at that level of earnings you have tax giveaways like pre-taxed retirement savings and HSAs to take advantage of that most lower earners do not benefit from.

Taxes are for little people.

[quote] And between federal, state, social security, etc....almost 50% of my income is sucked away for nothing.

What’s the exact percentage and where do you live?

You need to tell us

Whether you are an employee or contractor

Gross income

Taxable income

Amount of taxes you owe

OP = Taraji P Henson

"Police. Fire. Hospitals. Schools. Roads and bridges." - The Ghost of Dorothy Zbornack

" Army (men), Navy (men), Air Force (gay men), Marines (men)." - The Ghost of Blanche Devereaux

" Libraries. Parks. Community centers." - The Ghost of Rose Nylund

This is a very strangely naive post. You didn’t notice the taxes taken out on your paycheck? Are you 15 years old?

OP just seems like a libertarian troll, if OP is a real person.

[quote] Taxes are for little people. — Marge Schott

Wasn’t that Leona Helmsley?

Only losers pay taxes.

OP, go live off the land, in the middle of the Canadian wilderness with zero modern conveniences then. Taxes pay for ALL of this.

Capital gains taxes are a bitch and the big boys probably skate around a fair amount of them.

Capital gains taxes are only a bitch if you hold for less than a year. They max out at 20%. Otherwise, it is taxed as income.

If you work really really hard you can be a 1%-er too.

Did mine and I'm only getting a $138 federal refund. I guess they're getting better with the withholding, but I was hoping for more.

Wait until 2026. The Trump tax cuts expire for individuals in 2025, which was obviously timed for after what he expected to be his second term. The tax cuts for businesses were permanent.

I feel your pain. Public roads are paid for out of gas taxes and car registration. Somebodies got to pay for these wars. Weapons aren't cheap. Plus we have in the u.s. about 20 percent of the population getting crazy money possibly 30. I have a business and the IRS cleans me out every year.

[quote]Somebodies got to pay for these wars.

Oh, DEAR!

I can't make heads nor tails from the rest of your post.

r19 This seems to be a trend this year. They redesigned the W-4 a few years ago to try to get people's withholding to be more accurate and its effect seems to be finally kicking in. The problem is that people are too accustomed to receiving (and relying on) big refunds.

People are just so ignorant about taxes. Refunds are like change you get back when you pay at the store. It's just what you overpaid. And there's no point in lending money to the government interest free when you could've had access to it throughout the year. But then people are stupid about money in general.

I'm wondering if this is going to become a campaign issue .... "Biden shrunk my refund!!!"

My accountant told me years ago that no one should get a 'big refund' in April, or any refund at all. That means you paid way too much taxes for twelve months, which the government kept and didn't pay you interest on.

If anything - you should always owe the government at the end of the year - about $200 or less is ideal. Use THEIR money for twelve months - don't let them use yours ! (Last year I owed the Feds less than $20). If you're getting a refund for hundreds of dollars (or worse - thousands of dollars) you're doing something very wrong...especially if you're single. Maybe you need to look at your deductions again, for starters ?

I'm amazed how more people have not caught on that Trump's tax cuts meant the middle and lower income people paid more in taxes while the upper incomes paid less.

Everyone should have seen that in the past few years.

TAX THE RICH!

I’d gladly pay more taxes if the money went to libraries and parks, but so much goes to pay for wars.

I haven’t gotten a refund in years and have to prepay taxes to avoid a big tax bill in April. But II get a nice city pension so my taxes and yours support me. Thank you everyone.

[quote]My accountant told me years ago that no one should get a 'big refund' in April, or any refund at all. That means you paid way too much taxes for twelve months, which the government kept and didn't pay you interest on.

Totally accurate but do you think the masses who are stupid enough to vote for the Trumps, Boeberts, MTGs, et al. of this world will ever grasp this? No--they just want their big "free money" check from Uncle Sam.

Dear Ruski AI Bot, people are doing their2023 taxes. Every bit of paper. has big numbers 2023, but you are a sightless algorithm.

01011001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01100101 01100100 00101110

R20, and a big reason that scraping the Trump Tax Hoax should be a Democratic priority.

R28 That is exactly what baffles me - they think the 'gubmint' is giving them a check at the end of the year. They don't realize this is their money which the 'gubmint' has used for twelve months ? They don't realize that if they put this money into an investment for 12 months they could've come out with more money at the end of the year - even if it's $ 5 ? Too idiotic for words.

[quote]almost 50% of my income is sucked away for nothing.

In a normal country "nothing" in this sentence would = "public health, education and social safety nets", but it is true that in the US it more likely = military hardware or subsidies to fantastically wealthy people's companies. In the latter case it truly is "nothing".

if you got nothing it would feel like living in Mauritania etc

SIngle no dependants - Yeah we pay a shit ton of taxes.

There are personal exemptions, exemptions for age and blindness, standard or itemized deductions, deductions to be taken for monies deposited in retirement accounts and FSAs pre-tax, and various deductions for educational expenses, childcare, and job-related expenses. The itemized deductions can include local property taxes up to $10k, mortgage interest, and medical care expenses if they exceed a certain threshold of income among others. Until you're 70.5 years old, one can deduct up to 60% of Adjusted Gross Income for charitable contributions. After one reaches 70.5 you can deduct 100%.

No one is paying 50% in taxes unless they want to.

I hope OP means 2023.

Good eye, R36!

[quote] I don't get any benefits from what I'm paying in.

So OP apparently doesn't drive on the roads, doesn't take over the counter medicines or eat food inspected by the FDA, doesn't fly on airplanes protected by TSA and air marshals, doesn't bank in a bank protected by the FDIC, doesn't drive vehicles that are safer because federal safety controls and a million other things that the federal government does.

r35 - I believe the OP is just reacting to his gross vs net after taxes and before any tax refund. Trump pretty much neutered the advantage of interest and real estate tax deductions by capping it at 10K. Most times a standard deduction is better. The op is probably not taking into account any 401K pre-tax (unless they are investing in roth 401K). etc. But in reality most people pay between 38-50% of taxes fed, state and local combined.

[quote]Army (men), Navy (men), Air Force (gay men), Marines (bottoms)...

[quote]Trump pretty much neutered the advantage of interest and real estate tax deductions by capping it at 10K

This is one of the most insidious ways Trump screwed the middle class, particularly in states where the cost of living is high (which are, coincidentally, blue states). This should be among the top priorities for the coming second Biden administration along with an overhaul of the tax code shifting the burden to where it belongs, the 1%.

Yeah, good eye, r36 r37

.

r29

(R3) I take it you've never driven on a public road? Visited a public park? Thought that your friends and neighbors deserve police and fire protection, even though you'd never avail of it?

Come to California and see how well-funded and well-maintained those roads, parks, and protective services are lol.

Boohoo, you drunken illiterate.

You get plenty in return for your tax dollars. Roads, police and fire, libraries, an educated population, national parks, defense, clean air and water, and a jewel budget for former first ladies.

OP is worried that his taxes are going to pay for a room at the Waldorf for illegal immigrants.

an educated population

OH MARY

OP is just another Trumptard stirring up trouble.

No way he paid more than 50% of his income in taxes. It's mathematically impossible unless he was paying back fees from tax evasion in the past, or he has some kind of other odd, possibly criminal, past.

There is absolutely NO way you are paying almost 50%.

NONE.

Stop lying and go back to your libertarian and MAGA boards.

R39 Perhaps...but the highest Federal rate is 37% on income over $578K annually for 2023. But people think everything you make is taxed at that rate. It's not. Everything from $231 to 578K is taxed at 35%, everything from $182 to 231K is taxed at 32%, income from $95 to 182K is taxed at 24%, and so on down. Less than 1% of US taxpayers report earning an Adjusted Gross Income of more than $500,000 a year and less than .001% report more than $600K annually - in many cases not because they don't earn more, but because they have a shitpile of strategies, trusts, exemptions, tax-free investments, charitable contributions and deductions that reduce one's stated income.

The rich are different than you and me: they get to deduct their therapy horses, like Mrs. Romney did. And just as an FYI, look at his taxes: when released prior to his run for president, he paid $1.9 million on a $13.7 million dollar income or a federal tax rate of 14.1% when the rates were higher, pre-Trump. Throw in SS (4% in 2011) and the Massachusetts income tax (5%) and he was paying less than 23%. One reason? A lot of his income was from capital gains, taxed at 20%.

Given how few people earn that much and how stupid those few people would be if their accountants and tax lawyers didn't find them some serious loopholes, I stand by what I wrote. Very, very few people are paying 50% of what they make in taxes. Perceiving they do, perhaps, but not paying that much.

[quote]There are personal exemptions, exemptions for age and blindness,

Personal exemptions were reduced to ZERO after 2017. Basically, they no longer exist.

Since the huge change in 2017, fewer than 10% of taxpayer can itemize their deductions, so it's useless to even mention them since they affect so few people. I itemized for most of my adult life but haven't been able to do so since the SALT cap came into being.

^Sadly, this is how out of touch DLers can be. It's a hoot to disturb their dated visions of reality.

OP budgets to his gross income.

Just got my w-2 My overall tax rate was 33% - combined Fed, Medicare, SS, State and Local.

[quote] I don't get any benefits from what I'm paying in.

It would be better to say that perversely, the less people pay to the government, the more they receive from the government. You just don’t get as many benefits as people who receive handouts.

[quote] Just got my w-2 My overall tax rate was 33% - combined Fed, Medicare, SS, State and Local.

R53 33% is not your tax rate, that is the rate at which taxes were withheld. When you file your taxes you figure out how much you will actually pay, lots of people get refunds, if you get a refund from the amount withheld on your W-2 that amount of money was not taxed.

[quote]You just don’t get as many benefits as people who receive handouts.

Setting aside the obvious agenda of anyone who'd use "handouts" to describe the various programs, I to think of it this way:

If the choice is pay taxes or live in the Thunderdome, I'd rather pay taxes. Do you honestly think that there wouldn't be periodic revolutions or that marauding bands of poor people would simply lie down and die? Hardly.

Even as bad as the smash and grab shoplifting and other crimes are, it would be a lot worse if folks had to figure a way to survive.

You can pay private security (if you'd even have a job to pay with) or you can pay taxes. Your pick. Finally, the benefits payments are being spent somewhere. It's very likely that your job directly or indirectly generates revenues which would not exist without those benefits and the spending that goes along with them. Add to that the economics of scale in manufacturing, retail, and distribution, without the benefits payments, costs for products and services would likely skyrocket.

[quote] If the choice is pay taxes or live in the Thunderdome

I stopped reading after that false dichotomy.

r55 I just meant I paid 33% of my gross income in taxes. I understand that is not my rate.

R57 You're right. It is a false dichotomy.

Either you pay your taxes, or you get fined and possibly go to jail.

Get your checkbook, motherfucker!

I want more of my paid taxes to go to programs that make other Americans lives better. That is why I am happy to pay taxes that go to education and taxes that subsidize ACA Mental health benefits. I may not use these services directly, but people who do, make all of our lives a better place.

What I do not want is for taxes reduced so far that MORE BILLIONAIRES are created.

Another post by a dunce (provocateur at best), i.e., the OP.

[quote] [R55] I just meant I paid 33% of my gross income in taxes. I understand that is not my rate.

Well when you posted " My overall tax rate was 33% " you certainly can understand why I thought that was what you meant.

r62 Yes I misspoke.

R55, and if that’s your gross withholding- not bad. You do know that from about 1950 to 1982 the top marginal Federal tax rates was between 70 and 90%. I believe the current top marginal Federal earned income tax rate is 38%

OP kills me, like those high wage earners who complain about IRMAA Medicare.

I would LOVE to make the higher earnings to pay the higher taxes.

Just remember that Trump's Tax Dodge sunsets the tax brackets for us Poor Peeps and continues the big business breaks undisturbed.

We condole you OP

I suspect that this thread isn’t going as OhPee intended.

[quote]Personal exemptions were reduced to ZERO after 2017. Basically, they no longer exist.

That of course is false.

The $4000 "personal exemption" was added to the standard deduction. It is still there, it's just lumped with the standard deduction and no longer framed as that category. The only government advantage of this shift is to make it harder to beat the standard deduction. In practice this certainly streamlines the process, makes the standard deduction about $13,000, up from $6400 and makes the 1040 form simpler. It doesn't affect as many taxpayers as we thought in my tax office.

[quote] Either you pay your taxes, or you get fined and possibly go to jail.

Or door number 2 - Either you pay your taxes, or You become the republican candidate for President, and actually win the election. You never disclose your taxes - you claim you're in the middle of an audit and your cult believes you and never questions you.

[quote] just meant I paid 33% of my gross income in taxes.

No, you didn't. The government taxes you, not your employer. Your employer withholds money from your pay and sends it to the IRS/Social Security as a deposit against your final tax liability, which is not determined until you file your Form 1040. THAT'S when you pay taxes.

Those withholdings and 'deposit' your employer does on your behalf is indeed a partial payment of your taxes, R70.

[quote]I stopped reading after that false dichotomy.

Several thoughts: first, it's your loss because the points R56 made were valid and on point. Second, we all know what R56 was saying and it's not a stretch to see it as a binary choice; certainly, conservatives would jump to the conclusion that all the brown people would riot without law enforcement, but that's just their typical projection as we all know that without LE, Republiscum would immediately violate every law from tax evasion to outright murder (do the words "I could ‘shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters" ring a bell?). Finally, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote and as inscribed over IRS HQ in DC, "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." Maybe R56 could have avoided your droll departure had he said "If the choice is pay taxes or live in chaos..." but it made for a much more interesting comment to invoke Tina Turner.

Now pardon me, I have to go listen to "We Don't Need Another Hero".

[quote]Finally, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote and as inscribed over IRS HQ in DC, "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

Fun fact: I worked in that building (1111 Constitution Ave. NW) from 1982-1987. I worked for the IRS for 37 years in total.

[quote] the points [R56] made were valid and on point.

I stopped reading after you stated that r56 with the false dichotomy had valid points.

r70 Let it go Elsa.

I think Medicare deductions from a Social Security check should be prorated. The person who makes 800 a month shouldn’t have to pay the same as a person who makes 1800 a month.

They don’t

Are you talking about Medicare Part B premiums? They are definitely different depending on your income. Many people pay higher than the standard premium.

And many people have their full part B premiums subsidized by Medicaid.