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Taxes are defined as a compulsory (required by law) contribution to State revenue, levied by the government on worker’s income and business profits or added to the cost of goods, and services.   Taxes are said to provide revenue for federal, local, and State governments to fund services that are considered essentials.  Those services are things such as: highways, police, courts justice system; fund public libraries, parks, some schools, healthcare, social security, as well as other government programs that are supposed to help those in need.

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When used appropriately for such services, taxes are considered good.  When misused, imposing taxes are not good.  When people work and do not make a decent salary, when taxes are removed from their gross pay, it could leave them with half of their paycheck remaining to pay bills.  Most people who do not make a decent living wage, feel that the government takes out way too much taxes from gross pay.   Therefore, they do not see the value of being taxed.  There are no tax incentives for a young single person, with no children, who does not qualify for a lot of the government programs.   

 

Perhaps, the government should consider Net Pay instead of Gross Pay, because gross pay is not what is deposited into your account, therefore gross pay is not truly what you make.  Net pay is what really should be considered, and if it were more people could possibly qualify for some of the programs and see their tax dollars at work for them as well.   Where are the incentives for Everyone who pays taxes?  You don’t always get the amount of money back in a refund check at the end of the year, especially when you don’t have children and cannot claim head of household.  

 

When half of your pay is removed after taxes, it is unfair to have to live off of the remaining dollars with the rising cost of living, and still not qualify for any type of government assistance programs, and not get much back in a refund either.   

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We really need to challenge the government to think about all types of people who have taxes taken out of their paychecks, how much taxes are taken out (the more you make, the more tax is removed from your gross pay), as well as consider their expenses as well, when determining who qualifies for programs.    For example, if you work or live in PA and your gross pay is $75,000 a year, you could be taxed $17, 353, which actually means that your salary isn’t actually $75,000, it’s $57,647 a year, which is at a tax rate of 23.1%.    If there is a government assistance program that has an income limit eligibility requirement of $74,500, you wouldn’t qualify, because of your gross, when in actuality, what you actually receive as income, would make you eligible for assistance, if net pay was considered instead of gross pay. 

 

Now, let’s go a step further by subtracting all of your expenses from your net pay (take home pay), you have even less money depending on how many expenses you have (i.e., rent/mortgage, car note, car insurance, groceries/food, toiletries, miscellaneous repairs and maintenance, school tuition, credit cards, store cards, subscriptions, utilities, transportation cost (gas, toll), internet/cable, cell phone/home phone, medical co-pays and expenses, clothing, and entertainment (if you can afford to do anything else after all of those expenses).  

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I don’t think that we should do away with taxes altogether, I just think that we need to reconsider how much taxes are taken out of a persons' pay check.   There are a lot of people who make less than $50,000 a year, so you can imagine how much more help they need, but cannot get because some of the government programs require you to make less than that to quality, even if you cannot afford to live off of that amount of money, with the high rising cost of living.  Even if your gross pay is $90,000 a year in PA, you could be taxed $22,270.00 per year, which means that you actually make $67,730 a year, and you're sitting there wondering why you’re struggling to make ends meet, probably because you are trying to live off of your gross and not your net pay.

 

Even if you gross two million dollars a year, federal taxes could reach 37% with an additional 3.07% for Social Security and Medicare (FICA) in PA (about a net pay of $1.20600 million).  No one should have to work 2-3 jobs to make ends meet, because of the amount of taxes coming out of their pay check.  Some things are simply just not fair or equitable, and unfortunately never will be…taxes.

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By Jason Torrents