Posted on 02/17/2012 12:06:20 PM PST by Why So Serious
I work in the private sector. If I make $20 per hour and pay 25% in federal income tax the federal government has $5 where they had none. Thus I paid taxes.
On the other hand, if a federal employee earns $20 and he pays 25% in federal taxes the government now has $16 where it used to have $20. That ponders the title question. I say that federal employees pay no income tax.
Members of the military are certainly federal employees - and we certainly paid income taxes...
Where you get $16 from?
Federal employees are subject to federal income taxes. In essence, the federal government’s net cost for the employee is 100% minus the effective federal tax rate for that employee.
There was a time when federal employees were not charged any taxes. They are now. There was also a time when federal employees were not allowed to vote(in federal elections)...nor were citizens of Washington DC.
Believe me, I worked for the Federal government for 36 years and I certainly paid taxes as does my brother (USPS) and my father (retired USAF).....
Your math is funny. But federal employees pay taxes just like everyone else. Except for people like Warren Buffet who can use his companies to pay for everything he wants and avoid paying income taxes.
Its time to strip all on welfare and such of their voting rights
They pay taxes but uncle same does not generate revenue by taxing federal employees.
Or, you could say that Federal wages and salaries are actually lower than advertised.
The Feds “offer” a job at a certain pay rate, but get a legally mandated kickback.
What a waste of bandwidth!
There was a time when NOBODY paid income taxes in this country. There was a time when every single federal employee was a patronage employee who got his job for doing work for the political parties.
I was also in the military and paid income tax.
Now, there IS an amail floating around the Internet that indicates that federal employees owe in excess of $3Billion in back income tax (and, I cannot vouch for the reliability if this information, I just personally don’t doubt it!) so, based on that, it can be argued whether or not they pay income tax.
I’m just having a little fun with you. To the best of my knowledge, they are supposed to pay income tax.
For years I have dreamed of an accounting system that tracks the benefits each citizen receives from public funds and also the burden each citizen bears to support public funding. Certain rights should be put on placed on “hold” whenever an individual’s running tally of benefit to burden dips into negative. Many people will be negative from the day they are born to the day they die.
Then, there was the time residents of DC voted in Maryland Elections!
You are a loon
It is common among Conservatives to say that businesses pay no taxes. What is meant is that if a corporation needs to pay Uncle Sam $5M, the corp gets that money by charging customers the equivalent amount. The customers provide the money -- they, in effect, pay the corp tax on behalf of the corporation, although the corporation "sends the check".
In a similar way, federal employees, whether military or not, may "send a check", but all of their available income is derived from the government -- the government gives them money so that they can give the government money.
I can see the point that, in reality, federal employees pay no real tax: it's figured into their government pay.
You bet your sweet bippy I do.
He’s not an idiot, you are. He’s just not expressing himself very clearly but it is easy to figure out what he means...IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN, which you seem to not have.
Since when is one quarter of $20 4$? At least be consistent .... that tax rate of 25% would yield $5 for either tax payer. You have $15 dollars left and so does the person paid by the federal (or state or city) government.
You strain at a gnat
If two people make $20 gross, one a federal employee and one private, they both pay the same rate of income tax. The both get to keep the same amount of dollars afterwards.
... and since everything we have is God’s does any of us really pay taxes?
What’s your point? I don’t think you have a clue.
“Oh, that’s going to be a problem. That would leave me with $40,000 a year, and I know I can’t live on that. I really need $50,000 a year for my family to survive.”
“Hmmmmmm. That is a problem, isn’t it? See, we’re really depending on you sending us $10,000 a year in taxes. Hmmm. Let’s see – how about we give you a salary of $60,000 a year, and you can send us $10,000 a year in taxes. That will leave you with $50,000 and you can live on that. Sounds fair?”
“You bet!”
Is the worker paying taxes? It's just government shifting money from one pocket to another. Now, if you, as a worker at a manufacturing facility, pay $10,000, then the govenrment is actually getting revenue. YOU are paying taxes. Federal workers? I don't think they really pay taxes.
Every thing is God’s??? REally???
I’m thinking of a quote....”render unto caesar what is caesar’s, render unto god what is god’s”
Apparantly certain things are not God’s after all!
Not really into math are you?
To answer your question, yes, Federal employees pay income taxes. While it’s odd that we collect our pay from taxpayers and then give some right back as taxpayers, that’s how it is.
I think the OP’s point is that it’s the same money being moved back and forth.
They could just as easily pay the Federal worker $15 instead of $20, and say he owes no income tax, and not bother to shuffle the money back and forth. IOW, there’s no real revenue there.
Whereas the private employee provides revenue, “new” money.
My, my, my...your vocabulary is so underwhelming.
You must not get out much.
The original poster had two employee, both paid the same gross wages.
The same tax is removed from both employees wages; they both pay taxes.
The impact is only different to the employer, but that wasn’t the question.
I am going to get a big bowl of popcorn. this thread outta be good.
LOL
LOL
Why so serious, when you can play funny arithmetic games!
You just gave me an OUTSTANDING idea! I have a son who's a Cub Scout, and they sell popcorn for their Fall Fundraiser. With the excitement of the this year's election, FReepers will need to buy a LOT of popcorn.
I'll limit it to the D/FW Metroplex, of course. Others can seek out their local Cub Scout Troop.
Hopefully, there will be an "unexpected" (uh-oh, not that word) surge in Cub Scout popcorn sales in the fall of 2012.
Besides the funny math you are almost correct. The government gets revenue from the private employee’s taxes, money it didn’t have before.
By an accounting trick the governement appears to get revenue from the government employee when in fact it is just taking back some of its own money.
The money represents labor. Even for gov’mint employees one’s labor is not his own.
I was in the BSA and I sold greeting cards.
They gave me a case and sold em all in one day.
My first sales job and I had so many slammed doors.
I remember one that slammed and I happily started off to the next house and the woman who had slammed the door on me re-opened her door and bought 5 boxes.
She felt bad but also wanted to tell me I should be wearing my uniform. It will make it easier to sell.
I ran home and then returned to her house and asked if there was anything else I needed.
Man, I can’t believe I am recalling this, LOL.
She said “Yes”.
She made a phone call and two of her neighbors came over and bought some boxes.
I guess that spurred me on because I remember my Mom smiling and my Dad beaming when I gave them the monies to deliver to whoever it got delivered to.
My 1st sales job. LOL
Perseverance toward my goal and smiling the whole time.
Still do it today, only now I invoke the power of God in my endeavors.
The thread is still here. Loon.
Ah, but it is:
"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders.
Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find.
And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money.
Is this what you consider evil?
Excerpts of Francisco's Money Speech, Atlas Shrugged
He owns it all! All the cattle on 5 million hills and all the taters and maters in 10 million valleys. Mar 12:17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marveled at him.
First...go back to the bathroom and take your meds......
Economically speaking, no government employees pay taxes.
If the government creates a new position at, say, $50K gross salary, the private sector must cough up $50,000. On the way to the employee, a computer entry is made to divert a portion of that to taxes.
People in the private sector had to go to work to pay those taxes as well as his take-home pay. It's no different with sales taxes or even the goods he purchases. Private sector workers earned the money for him to buy them.
It's not immoral. We need government workers (to some extent,) but it's why the claim that adding government employees improves the economy is false.
Which is true and easily reasoned. This guy needed to start a thread about this?
I don't know what your salary and taxes are, but let's say the Fed's pay you $40K and take back $8K. There would be no effective difference to anyone if they instead paid you $32K and you paid no taxes at all. For the rest of us out here, if our employer pays us $32K we have to give some of that to the government. The analogy I suggested above has no analogue in the private sector.
ML/NJ
As a 25 year Federal employee I just have to pipe in on this. He is certainly not an idiot, however the fact that so many seem to not grasp his concept certainly explains why we as a country are in such deep trouble. Federal employees that get a paycheck derived 100% from taxpayers may “pay” federal income tax on paper, but they certainly do not contribute money to the US Treasury in the form of income tax. They simply send some money back. It’s a shell game. I’ve said for years that citizens that receive more in payments from the government than they pay in should not be allowed to vote (with an exemption for active duty military). This does not make me very popular at the water cooler!
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