Quote: Public servants pay very little into their own pension funds, health care, and retire after 20 or 30 years of service.

Really? In NJ, public servants fund their own retirement plans.

What do you think happened to him?

If you’re not going to pay taxes on your all-cash side income, don’t tell anyone else about it!

That statement is patently false.

There are a lot of people who care so much about their children’s education that, not only do they pay taxes to send other children to school, but they also pay to send their children to a private school that does not receive money from the government. Most of these people in my area are not rich, either. We may not have UNIVERSAL education in a form you find acceptable, but that’s considerably different than what you wrote.

If taxes alone pay for roads, there should be no toll roads.

etc., etc.

And I have a hard time with the phrase “Pay for a tax break” for a completely different reason than the previous poster. The arguement is simplistic to the point of being useless. If you raise/lower taxes by 10% it doesn’t mean you will be collecting 10% more or less. There are often decision points where one makes a decision to work or not, invest or not, buy, sell, etc. People are happy to work to put 10% into government coffers, but will just stay home and live off the garden if the tax rate is 90%. The arguement is over the location of the sweet spot. And with marginal rates that gets very complicated.

@27 Andrew L
Actually the whole ‘pay for tax breaks’ thing is meaning that when the government takes a reduction in it’s income (e.g. giving out tax breaks), they should also be spending less. It’s not that you need to do the ‘paying for’ it’s that they need to keep their books balanced, just like how we say people shouldn’t be spending beyond their means (means in the government’s case is their tax revenue).

Sorry to detract from the conversation…

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2010/05/11/US-tax-burden-at-lowest-point-in-years/UPI-74091273594893/

http://denverurbanism.com/2010/11/why-the-federal-gas-tax-isnt-covering-our-needs.html

In my profession, “frivolous” is definitely the f-word when dealing with the IRS. It can get you into lots of trouble.

http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#government

What the crap?! It’s one thing to levy taxes to fund government services, it’s another to abrogate all of me income, and then magnanimously allow me to keep some of it. It’s my money first!

And another thing! Why if I’m late making a tax payment, the government tacks on interest, but if the government is late in giving you your refund, NO interest! Stop playing games government!!

I could go on and on with the complaints!

Now I’m off to complete my 2010 tax return. Good reminder.

I wonder how much of those services are really funded by the federal income tax. Isn’t a lot of the road and bridge maintenance paid for by fuel taxes? Aren’t most school systems funded by property taxes? I know law enforcement is heavily funded by the USG, despite questionable adherence to the Posse Comitatus Act.

Somehow I suspect all those services existed in the US prior to the implementation of a federal income tax. What didn’t exist prior were trillion dollar bailouts, global American hegemony, obscenely under-funded programs, and all the other goodies the federal government ostensibly “provides” with those tax dollars.