The Tea Partiers are Weird, but this is a revolting question

[Martok]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbyFeFhUTmI&feature[/youtube]

[Lion IRC]

The P.K. Winsome Tea Bagger consultant routine on the Colbert Report was funny.
It aired in .au last night right after Jon Stewarts interview with Tea Party author John O'Hara.
Politics junkies in Australia would starve if they had to survive on local content.
Lion (IRC)

[Martok]

This survey says tea baggers are overwhelmingly republican.

Looking at voters who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement:

* 74 percent are Republicans or independent voters leaning Republican;
* 16 percent are Democrats or independent voters leaning Democratic;
* 5 percent are solidly independent;
* 45 percent are men;
* 55 percent are women;
* 88 percent are white;
* 77 percent voted for Sen. John McCain in 2008;
* 15 percent voted for President Barack Obama.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1436

[epepke]

lol. I had only heard the word tea party before today, and I knew of the Boston tea party back in the day.

I'll just say this: YOU DON'T PAY ENOUGH TAXES IN THE US

While I don't support the Teabaggers, and while the original Tea Party was in response to a terribly small tax (that I think was never actually collected--or was that the Stamp tax?) this isn't quite accurate.

Here is a list of some income taxes that citizens of the US pay:

Federal income tax
Federal social security tax
Payroll tax
State income tax
County income tax
City income tax
School district income tax

The last four can be assessed based on location of residence, location of workplace, or both. So that's 11 possible taxes. Most Americans pay fewer taxes, and it varies from state to state. People in Pennsylvania pay a lot, and I know this, because I worked for a company that had to figure them out for withholding. I live in Florida, which is one of the few states that do not have a state income tax.

Plus, the tax codes are so arcane and complex that there exists a large network of companies that survive year-round, and mostly they just charge people to fill out their income tax forms. It costs a couple of hundred dollars, and it's usually worth it, because they are trained to know the tax code.

Plus, the penalties for not paying enough tax are Draconian and can be hundreds of times the amount owed. Senators maintain large offices, and one of the biggest things they do for citizens is help get their problems with the IRS settled. (I know this because a girlfriend of mine worked at one.)

I don't know how much in taxes that Americans pay versus Europeans. Everyone says that Europeans pay more, but that usually only takes into account Federal taxes. It would be, at least, a PhD dissertation project to figure out how much Americans pay in just the income taxes alone.

If Americans are pissed off at taxes, I don't think it's just the money. It might not even be the money at all, except as an abstract quantifier. There is a vast amount of sheer annoyance that all Americans are subjected to about the tax system.

[drl2]

lol. I had only heard the word tea party before today, and I knew of the Boston tea party back in the day.

I'll just say this: YOU DON'T PAY ENOUGH TAXES IN THE US

While I don't support the Teabaggers, and while the original Tea Party was in response to a terribly small tax (that I think was never actually collected--or was that the Stamp tax?) this isn't quite accurate.

Here is a list of some income taxes that citizens of the US pay:

Federal income tax
Federal social security tax
Payroll tax
State income tax
County income tax
City income tax
School district income tax

You forgot sales tax in most states, plus "hidden" taxes like toll roads, the cut the gov't takes on sales of fuel, alcohol, cigarettes, etc., and less commonly applied ones like prize taxes and estate taxes.

The last four can be assessed based on location of residence, location of workplace, or both. So that's 11 possible taxes. Most Americans pay fewer taxes, and it varies from state to state. People in Pennsylvania pay a lot, and I know this, because I worked for a company that had to figure them out for withholding. I live in Florida, which is one of the few states that do not have a state income tax.

I'm in Delaware which is somewhat the opposite of Florida in that our income taxes are fairly high but there's no sales tax. The best arrangement around here is probably to live & work in Maryland but cross the state line to do your shopping (but then you'd be living in Elkton or Rising Sun, which would be safe for me since I'm a generic white guy, but the Klansmen might have some issues for folks of any other ethnicity...)

Don't know about the income tax in PA but their property taxes are outrageous - last time my family went house shopping we looked at a model identical to the one we ended up buying in DE, but we figured out the property tax would be something like 3x what we would expect to pay for the same model here.

Plus, the tax codes are so arcane and complex that there exists a large network of companies that survive year-round, and mostly they just charge people to fill out their income tax forms. It costs a couple of hundred dollars, and it's usually worth it, because they are trained to know the tax code.

There's a large network of tax preparation companies because there are a large number of people who can't or won't be bothered to do the simple math required or step through a list of plainly laid out steps. It really doesn't get all that complicated unless you have a lot of different sources of income, or a lot of uncommon deductions, or you're a multi-state and/or multi-national corporation (in which case you've already got a crack team of accountants figuring out how to make it look like you've had no profit this year).

Plus, the penalties for not paying enough tax are Draconian and can be hundreds of times the amount owed. Senators maintain large offices, and one of the biggest things they do for citizens is help get their problems with the IRS settled. (I know this because a girlfriend of mine worked at one.)

http://taxes.about.com/od/backtaxes/qt/ ... enalty.htm

The penalty is 5% per month for failing to file, capped at 25%, and .5% per month for failing to pay after filing. Anybody paying "hundreds of times the amount owed" is paying it to the lawyer or accountant they hired to help them get out paying their taxes to begin with, or still owes back taxes from 1847.

I don't know how much in taxes that Americans pay versus Europeans. Everyone says that Europeans pay more, but that usually only takes into account Federal taxes. It would be, at least, a PhD dissertation project to figure out how much Americans pay in just the income taxes alone.

It's a complex question of course because it varies by income level, types of investments & how they're taxed, country, etc., but I did track down a study from 2001 with a lot of info: http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,2546 ... _1,00.html

A summary on Google Answers talks about the "tax wedge" as an average total taxation by % of income, and in 2001 looked something like this:

US - 30%
UK - 29.7%
Denmark - 44.2%
Germany - 50.7%
France - 48.3%

But in most of those nations your taxes get you little "extras" like:

- free health care (a cost for me of over $12,000/year, IF I don't use it for anything major, and IF the department of transportation doesn't make me get glasses to keep my drivers license this year )
- free or inexpensive child care (easily $10,000/year here if you can find a place... in my case, we're forced to live on just my income because one child has some special needs that my wife has to be available to deal with when they arise)
- widely available public transportation
- slightly-less-crumbling infrastructure (better roads, more modern power grids, etc)

I can't find it at the moment but I saw a reference just the other day to a report claiming that many European nations had better social mobility (i.e. those born poor are more likely to achieve financial success) than the US does.

If Americans are pissed off at taxes, I don't think it's just the money. It might not even be the money at all, except as an abstract quantifier. There is a vast amount of sheer annoyance that all Americans are subjected to about the tax system.

Americans are pissed off at taxes because they think all the benefits of civilization should be magically sprinkled on them while they make boundless profits on the free market.