Hm....
15.4% Socialist Security
17% Federal income tax, $50K, single. (2009 1040A tax tables)
5% California Tax, $50K, single.(2009 540 California tax tables)
2% For all the petty withholding taxes.
9% Sales taxes
Hmm....15.4+17+5+2+9 = 48.4%
Should we add in fuel taxes, registration fees, property taxes, telephone taxes, and all the other nickels and dimes our governments steal from us, and it's easy to see why tax freedom day is never in February.
Thanks for playing the straight man here!
1) your social security tax rate is 7.65%, not 15.4 (the other amount is an employer tax... paid entirely by the employer, it ain't your money) I am employer. I pay these taxes, my employees do not. I set their salaries at market, this additional tax is over and above that salary.
2) the 17% tax on federal income is on your TAXABLE income, not what you earned. Assuming you are single and do not itemize, you have a $5700 standard deduction and $3650 exemption, that is $9,350 of your income for which is exempt from Federal Income (and usually state income taxes). So, if your taxable income was $50,000, let me assume you had a salary of 59,350.... Hence you had an effective rate of 14%.
3) If you itemized, you would be deducting your CA income tax on your federal return, hence you effective callifornia rate would be 5% * (1-25%) or 3.75%, but you did not itemize, so we will count the California rate at 5%...except, again its not on the whole income, so call it 4%
4) Sales tax. The only way you paid 9% in sales tax is if you spend every penny on consumable goods and did not eat or have a roof over you head. We know that was not the case. Likely only 20% of your income went for goods subject to sales tax, but lets' call it 30% to cover your fuel and phone ... so you paid 9% on $17,800 this rounds up to 3% of your income
5) Property taxes. Don't complain here, you don't itemize so you don't have property and property taxes. If you did, your income tax bill would have been lower
6) Registration fees - are fees, that is their nature... to apply the incident to the user. Don't call them taxes
7) Petty withholding taxes - I don't know what this is, so I will credit this to your account
OK... shall we: 7.65+14+4+3+2= 30.65% (including all of your miscellaneous items, which you did not include)
Thus proving my point, there is a general lack of understanding of how taxes work. People that just want to add one tax on top of another and work themselves into a frenzy with a bad conclusion and giving themselves undo heartburn.
