Dick and Jane are hard-working American taxpayers, a married couple filing jointly and making $100,000.00, that think they’re in the 8% tax bracket… based on their 1040 and their adjusted gross income.
Income Tax rate: 8.0
But…the Social Security Tax rate is 6.2% and Employer SS contribution is 6.2%.
The Medicare Tax Rate is 1.45% and the Employer Medicare contribution is 1.45%.
SS and Medicare taxes are referred to as payroll taxes, but, in the end, they’re an income tax. Read on…
Self-employed workers who pay SS, shoulder the entire burden of SS and Medicare, thus SS @ 12.4% and Medicare @ 2.9%, taxes based on their income. You can be sure that if your employer wasn’t paying 7.65% of your salary to the government, the employer’s contribution to SS & Medicare, you would have a larger salary.
Enter the SCOTUS. Regarding Social Security… a year after the SS Act was passed, SCOTUS ruled: “The proceeds of both employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like any other revenue generally, and are not earmarked in any way.”
IOW the, so-called, “payroll taxes” are a tax, indistinguishable from any other tax. A tax is a tax is a tax. PolitiCratz, who make their livelihood spending your tax dollars, aren’t stupid. They do, however, think you’re stupid and would like to keep it that way. So yeah, let’s call the SS & Medicare taxes on income, a different name than an income tax. Keep ’em in the dark and feed ’em BS.
Our example of an average American couple, Dick and Jane, thus has a Tax Rate of 23.3%.
Don’t forget to add your state income tax (my state, NJ = 2.75%). And… almost every one of your taxed dollars you spend is subjected to your state’s sales tax (my state NJ = 6.625%) And then there’s property tax (my home in NJ is taxed at 4.5%, and sure to increase)…
Furthermore, when you retire and collect SS, and receive Medicare, you pay tax on your SS benefit and you pay a monthly premium to Medicare that covers only 80% of your medical needs, unless you get a supplemental policy. There’s MediGap, which is quite expensive but needed if you have any medical issues, and there are Medicare Supplemental policies that are much more affordable but require co-pays. Remember, Social Security and Medicare are two retirement benefits that you paid a tax to qualify for, for your entire working life, yet upon retirement your SS benefit is taxed and you pay for Medicare.
While the Constitution does give the authority of taxation to Congress, I don’t think our current situation is exactly what the Framers had in mind. Consider that ObamaCare (ACA) sought to impose a penalty upon you if you didn’t acquire health insurance. That, my friends, was clearly unconstitutional. Enter the SCOTUS and turncoat Chief Justice John Roberts. Juxtice Roberts figured out a Constitutional workaround to the penalty, he declared it to be a tax, and taxation is constitutional. IOW, you are going to be taxed for refusing to buy something that the government demanded that you buy. And, again, if Congress has authority in anything, it is the power of taxation – used in this instance to make you do what you don’t want to do. That certainly turns the power of taxation on its head.
Some people think taxation is slavery. What say you? As always, Please, Change My Mind!
Change My Mind! 