Tears to your eyes
posted by robert - April 14th, 2006 at 11:30 AMNeal tipped me off to this article at IndustryWeek.com: Tax Cheats Snub Spend-Crazy Feds. The article (obviously) focuses on people who cheat on their returns, but the groundwork numbers the author lays at the beginning are staggering:
- 2005 total compensation earned: $8.2 trillion
- 2005 federal income taxes: $932 billion ($6,650 per employee)
- 2005 other federal taxes (mostly Social Security): $1.286 trillion
- 2005 total state/local taxes: $1.14 trillion
- 2005 total taxes: $3.358 trillion (~$24,000 per employee)
- 2005 total federal defense expenditures: $495 billion
- 2005 total federal goods/wages expenditures: $272 billion
- 2005 total federal distributions (Social Security, Medicaid, etc): $1.69 trillion
So 40% of what we earn goes to taxes ($3.358 trillion), of which just over 50% ($1.69 trillion) is then ..given to someone else.