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What do you mean, "how?". Your tired labor theory of value nonsense is alarming, even in the context of largely left-wing slashdot.

So, let me get this straight: It's perfectly fine that my mom is paying only 0.08% of the market value of her home in annual property taxes, and that millions of other homeowners are paying similar rates, because it "brings business into the state."

Well, what about the big-box retail revolution? Do you know what that's about? I do. It so happens that, now that jurisdictions cannot count on any inflation-adjusted revenue from residential property, they all fight over big retail outfits that will bring in tons of sales taxes. *Fight* over them, because there's not enough of them to go around. They offer them huge concessions *on top of* the tax breaks they already get. The cities end up cutting off their noses to spite their face, paying huge amounts of non-monetary costs in increased traffic, pollution, noise, and safety issues, so that they can get enough sales taxes to pay for their schools. Oh, guess what? Those stores aren't the ones paying the sales tax. The consumers are.

It doesn't matter how much business you bring into a place if it doesn't pay its way. In case you haven't noticed, employment is down, it's getting lower, and that's happening EVERYWHERE no matter what the tax laws are. The aerospace industry packed up and moved to Texas regardless of Proposition 13. The proposition has destroyed our social infrastructure, and I don't need a newspaper to tell me that... I've *experienced* it growing up in California.

As you can see here , it's lower (as a % of GDP) than it was when Reagan left office.
So I guess it's doing just fine.
More concerning is the massive amount of consumer debt that we have piled up over the last 15 years.

How 'bout letting us know which country you are from so we can ask you some smarmy, ill-informed questions?

"According to preliminary data released by the Internal Revenue Service and a new Tax Foundation Special Report, the top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers earned more than two-thirds of the nation's income (67.3%) and paid more than five out of every six dollars collected by the federal income tax (84%) in 2000. There were 32 million tax returns in the top 25 percent, all with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $55,225.

The top one percent of U.S. taxpayers (annual income over $313,469) made 20.8 percent of the income earned in 2000 and paid 37.4 percent of the total federal individual income taxes collected that year. This fraction of the tax burden paid by the top one percent - well over a third of the total - is up from 25.1 percent ten years earlier in tax year 1990.

At the other end of the income spectrum, the bottom 50 percent of the nation's taxpayers earned only 13.0 percent of all income in 2000, but they paid an even smaller fraction of the federal individual income taxes collected - 3.9 percent."

Here are the latest tax rates just signed into law.

If you like Sweden's system, don't bother living in the US!

Helevius

"According to preliminary data released by the Internal Revenue Service and a new Tax Foundation Special Report, the top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers earned more than two-thirds of the nation's income (67.3%) and paid more than five out of every six dollars collected by the federal income tax (84%) in 2000. There were 32 million tax returns in the top 25 percent, all with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $55,225.

The top one percent of U.S. taxpayers (annual income over $313,469) made 20.8 percent of the income earned in 2000 and paid 37.4 percent of the total federal individual income taxes collected that year. This fraction of the tax burden paid by the top one percent - well over a third of the total - is up from 25.1 percent ten years earlier in tax year 1990.

At the other end of the income spectrum, the bottom 50 percent of the nation's taxpayers earned only 13.0 percent of all income in 2000, but they paid an even smaller fraction of the federal individual income taxes collected - 3.9 percent."

Here are the latest tax rates just signed into law.

If you like Sweden's system, don't bother living in the US!

Helevius

"According to preliminary data released by the Internal Revenue Service and a new Tax Foundation Special Report, the top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers earned more than two-thirds of the nation's income (67.3%) and paid more than five out of every six dollars collected by the federal income tax (84%) in 2000. There were 32 million tax returns in the top 25 percent, all with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $55,225.

The top one percent of U.S. taxpayers (annual income over $313,469) made 20.8 percent of the income earned in 2000 and paid 37.4 percent of the total federal individual income taxes collected that year. This fraction of the tax burden paid by the top one percent - well over a third of the total - is up from 25.1 percent ten years earlier in tax year 1990.

At the other end of the income spectrum, the bottom 50 percent of the nation's taxpayers earned only 13.0 percent of all income in 2000, but they paid an even smaller fraction of the federal individual income taxes collected - 3.9 percent."

Here are the latest tax rates just signed into law.

If you like Sweden's system, don't bother living in the US!

Helevius

Sorry, forgot to close the bracket. Speaking of brackets, take a look here to see how the tax burden is divided in the US.

Yeah, whatever. Everyone *tells* me this, but really our property taxes aren't that bad. And when combined with the lack of a state income tax as well, it makes for one heck of a low tax burden.

See here

Actually, I think they would. If their Adjusted Gross Income was more than the unbelievable sum of $26,415 last year, they are in the top 50% (for the US anyway). More

Everyone says that, and our rate is high, but the property tax burden is, compared to other states, not that bad.

See here for example.

I should know this, since I work in an office that's half NH and half VT residents, and the VT residents are always claiming that we have high property tax rates, while if you actually look at the rates for most any place that's within 45 minutes of where I work (Hanover, NH), the property tax rates are equivalent on each side of the border (and then VT has sales tax and a high state income tax to boot).

Not that we don't have our problems here...

To illustrate the difference between the proportional weight of rural voters and urban voters, it may help to look at this map showing net return on the Federal dollar per state. (similar data in tabular form is here. A state that gets as much Federal spending as it sends to the Federal government has a ratio of 1.0; the states that get more than they contribute include New Mexico ($2.07 in Federal spending for every Federal tax dollar) and Montana (1.62 ratio) and states that get less than they spend include California and New York ($.87 spending per dollar) and Connecticut has the lowest ratio at .63

There is similar textual data at this link, which compares the 1990 data to the 2000 data.

Oh yeah. And in case you're gonna say anything about after-tax income, Tax Freedom Day (the date on which taxpayers have, on average, earned enough income to pay their annual taxes) in the US was April 17 in 1976 and April 27 this past year. Changes the number of months needed to work to actually pay for the average car to roughly 16 in 1976 and 11 in 2001 but doesn't change the outcome. Namely that cars now cost less roughly a third less in real dollars than they did in 1976.

Ha! I am immune to the doubling of taxes. ~50% of my income already goes to taxes in one form or another.

The median US family in the US pays about 40% of their income to taxes. nifty graphs. (note: I didn't check out the credibility of the people hosting this report, but it matches what I have read in known reputable sources, so I will link it)

Maybe "taxes would have to be doubled refers to the social security taxes? That would be roughly a 33% increase in total taxes taking the median tax burden to something just over 50%.

"...corporations pay much more tax on average."

According to the report I found at taxfoundation.org, corporations pay about 10% of the total Federal tax receipts. Guess who pays the other 90%. According to the same report, the effective tax rate on corporate profits is about 30%. That compares quite reasonably to the tax rate I pay on my income.

"...corporations pay much more tax on average."

According to the report I found at taxfoundation.org, corporations pay about 10% of the total Federal tax receipts. Guess who pays the other 90%. According to the same report, the effective tax rate on corporate profits is about 30%. That compares quite reasonably to the tax rate I pay on my income.

I already *am* working for the government --whether I like it or not. Every year, until around May or so. That's when I celebrate Tax Freedom Day: the day I've finished working to pay off the total tax bill imposed by the various levels of government.

(yeah, I know this is a link to last year's event; also the date varies by state)

(The commonwealth ranks higher in total tax burden -- i.e., federal and state taxes combined -- because it has a lot of people in high federal income tax brackets, but it still doesn't make the top 10.)

a third of the year is better? Tax Freedom Day 1999 was May 11, according to the Tax Foundation.