No one pays 50% of their income as tax. That is not how tax brackets work.

Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of income tax goes to the federal government.

Wtf? That's not how taxes work, guy.

Yes, I live in one of them, Washington state. But your reasoning here is highly flawed:

1. Even within Washington, much of society's necessities are paid for by the federal government, which DOES use income taxes.

2. Instead of using income taxes, Washington simply relies on other taxes. Not having income taxes doesn't automatically mean the tax burden is lower.

3. Because it relies on other taxes, the state's overall tax burden is highly regressive*, with poorer people paying proportionately more of their income than richer people. This is great for me, a SWE, but it's a lot less great for poor and working class folks.

* The lowest income quintile pays 17.8% of income to state and local taxes, whereas the top 1% of income earners pay only 3% to state and local taxes - https://itep.org/whopays/washington/

That's debatable. Just because they do it doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I mean, let’s be fair. No sales tax is extremely nice when buying almost anything, including cars, computers, groceries, furniture, etc. I think it’s pretty great! I’d rather have no sales tax across the board and then a handful of individual items with higher tax.

Places with little to no taxation are not flush with funds. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/state-and-local-t... The generally red, generally low tax southeast and southwest states have about half the revenue per capita of the generally blue, generally high tax states in the northeast and far west. Where did you get this funny idea that collecting few taxes leads to collecting lots of taxes?

So... It is a state that charges sales tax?

This sounds like the most normal thing in the universe. I can agree that it's not a good tax, though - it's regressive, and we should instead tax land owners, capital owners, and high-income earners.

It's a misleading claim every time it's made.

The people of Texas need to pay for things somehow; they must contribute tax revenue roughly equal to government expenses. If it's not personal income tax, then it's some other tax.

I prefer income tax when it's progressive (higher rates for higher earnings), because it helps equal out the sacrifice: 10% of $10,000 income is much more of a sacrifice than 10% of $1,000,000 income.

It's hard to see how any other tax is preferable. Why would I prefer sales tax?

I worked on a public project. The funds were misappropriated in my opinion. Your tax dollars are wasted like in every other state. Therefore: lower taxes.

I am not aware of any us state that charges sales tax on staple food items. Also I feel sorry for anyone that lives in a place with 10% sales tax that is crazy high

>>a bit of an odd position

Not really one of the ways I believe we have to keep them low is by ensuring transparency. My state has less 7% sales tax less than 4% state income tax, less than 1% local income tax and a capped property tax of 1%

Transparency is key to keeping them low

This is false. Food and clothing is exempt from sales tax. At least it is in my state and that's how it should be.

If they're genuinely poor, that's what they're spending their money on, so they wouldn't get taxed at all.

Nowhere that I've lived has had this. Not that I've ever lived in the US.

It's actually amazing how little most Americans pay in taxes yet we complain. This year my effective tax rate was ~8%. Of course this is by using every legal tax shelter available.

Considering what I get from the Federal government here in the US, I think 8% is actually fair. If it spent more of my money doing thing like taking care of home and quit with the empire building I'd be happy to pay more.

The taxes are too low.

> The report documents that the amount that road users pay through gas taxes now accounts for less than half of what’s spent to maintain and expand the road system. The resulting shortfall is made up from other sources of tax revenue at the state and local levels, generated by drivers and non-drivers alike. This subsidizing of car ownership costs the typical household about $1,100 per year—over and above the costs of gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees.

https://outline.com/6A63aM

I feel like this is the same story that repeats itself all over the place.

Another one is when our northern neighbors in Canada complain about the Chinese elite buying up homes AND keeping them vacant. They want higher taxes on empty homes and homes owned by Chinese nationals. I say such a scheme is racist. The real solution is to increase real estate and property taxes on EVERYONE so each unoccupied house is a net positive return for the community. Nobody likes this idea. They don't want to pay higher taxes themselves. They just want to charge people who aren't there and don't have a voice.

Another example, when I brought up the idea of taxing revenues instead of profits, people said that retail grocery stores would fail instantly because they run on very slim margins. If we said taxes apply on total revenue, anyone operating on razor thin margins would pretty much instantly go out of business. (I usually don't like to admit my ideas are horrible but this one was pretty bad in hindsight. However, the point is taxes on businesses are too low as a percentage of revenue. As an individual, I am also able to spend all the money I earn. I don't claim I should pay no income tax.)

These places all have other things going for them, though.

Why don't you move to a small town in Nebraska and pay all the Federal and State taxes as well as a 20% income tax, 10% property tax, 20% sales tax, etc. Oh, because you want something for your tax money? Hmmmm.

I live in an expensive part of Chicago. $50k for me has nothing in common with some rural Alabama family making $50k. This is one of the reasons why the flat tax is wrong. It lacks the flexibility and subtlety of a more complex tax system. In a nation this large with so many different wealth levels, a non-progressive tax is just asinine. But it engages conservative low information voters who just want easy cowboy-ish answers to complex problems, especially if they're the ones in he rural south who will benefit from this kind of plan more than northern Democratic urban dwellers.

The county is still a lot more local than a bank that might have an HQ across the country and is barely accountable even there. Also, most people's property taxes do go to their town or city, so your sample-of-one is not really a basis for a policy statement.

It does seem intuitive and fair, but I could (to myself at least) conclude it's intuitive and fair to not tax the money I use to pay taxes to someone else. To me, it's more that the taxes just keep coming - after those income taxes, I'll pay sales tax, property tax, etc.

I will say that part of my argument is probably a little irrational, and that stems from the fact that I don't agree with how my taxes get spent at the federal level. For what my town takes in property taxes, I feel they do a great job - the roads are in nice shape, the snow is cleared before my morning commute, services are timely, etc. The state does a pretty good job, even if we do pay one of the highest state income tax rates in the US and have a ridiculously bad governor (Maine), and I agree with a lot of where it's going even if we've needed the ballot box to do some of these things (like expand Medicare). My disagreements at the state level to what we're not spending money on, but that's a slightly classier problem than not liking where the money does go. The federal government, by contrast, seems to light a good portion of our money on fire, and then borrows some more and lights that on fire too.

And it doesn't sound appealing to me, as an individual. I don't want to feel like a peasant constantly paying a tax to the monarch/state: so at very least the first property an individual owns should be tax free (not annual land value tax / property tax). I happen to live in a country where that's the case (but it's not the reason I moved there): no yearly property tax.