It’s the middle class that is being squeezed.
I got to thinking about all the taxes, fees, tolls, surcharges we pay on a yearly basis...it’s mind numbing.
When I did the rough math, about 40% of our household income goes to some form of tax/fee.
Gas tax, federal income tax, property tax, school tax, sales tax, hospital district, EMS-Fire, Sports Authority. Redundant taxes on each phone line as well as a host of fees/surcharges. Internet/television connectivity hold fed, state, local taxes/fees. The list is endless.
This doesn’t even touch the inflated cost of goods and services due to government regulation.
Hard for anybody to get ahead of the financial curve when you spend so much on just red tape bureaucracy and taxes.
The Middle Class is getting squeezed ever more tightly. And that’s all part of the plan...
Excellent analysis of the tax realities.
Taxes were worse during the Clintoon years. In the mid 1990’s, I got an excellent early retirement. Our CPA advised me not to work the first year due to inability to shelter basically our income besides my wife’s maxed out 401 k and our little IRAs.
We still got hammered with taxes.
The next year I got a good paying consulting gig. My wife had gotten nice raises due to merit bowing out of her company health care cost as she was covered by retirement plan.
That was the good news. The bad news was the tax bites. Our
CPA advised us to deposit every other consulting check into a savings escrow to pay quarterly FICA both sides for me, fed and state taxes + property taxes. My wife had zero withholding deductions.
In spite of this we still owed some taxes at the end of the year.
When, I turned 62, my company’s retirement check deducted the estimated monthly FICA check, so I started drawing FICA.
Due to the tax penalties re limits of non fica income per year before penalties, my CPA advised me to retire totally and learn how to manage our IRAs and 401 Is.
When you buy an item from the grocery store, like a can of soda or loaf of bread, ever thought about how much of the price (not sales tax) is built-in taxes that the companies paid?