Income tax: Ever calculated how wealthy you'd be without it?

[oyarde]

In answer to the original question , I would easily have accumulated enough wealth to not work my regular job anymore , which , dang sure would have been nice !

[Zippyjuan]

The catch is that people seem to be assuming that they would be doing something different with their money than they currently do. If you never had to pay income taxes you would be allocating your money in the same percentges as you currently do- buying things, saving, investing. If you haven't saved a ton of money already, you would not have saved a ton more if you never paid any taxes (and again, about half of all income tax filers don't pay any income tax already anyways. Unless your income level is very high, you woldn't have earned much money than you have already. Unless, as Melissa points out, you were given back all of the income tax dollars you have already paid on one fell swoop. Then and only then would you have much more of anything than you currently do.

[idiom]

Have you ever calculated how wealthy you would be without federal deficit spending?

[oyarde]

Have you ever calculated how wealthy you would be without federal deficit spending?

Think about oil , then gas prices ...

[MelissaWV]

It's not really about how wealthy you'd be.

It's about how much smaller Government would be.

[Liberty74]

If you - a $12 hour earner today - take your payroll tax of 7.65% and invest it each month at 20 until age 70 or about $160 a month, you will retire with over $5 million assuming a 10% yearly gain which is doable over 50 years. That number occurs without you increasing that $160 and even with the ups and down of the market. If you only get half the return, it's still not a bad number to retire on. But the later you start investing in life the harder it becomes to make a sufficient amount to retire.

So in general, yes, I would be wealthy. I would also own the asset unlike now with SS. If you make it to that age, you get thrown on a fixed income that doesn't even pay the basic bills. And if you die before retirement, the govt simply says sorry about your luck. Isn't it Pesoli wonderful?

Side Note: I don't have kids or any mortgage deduction so the income tax definitely hurts me because I actually pay it and never receive a refund or welfare check like most families with kids.

[Kluge]

If you - a $12 hour earner today - take your payroll tax of 7.65% and invest it each month at 20 until age 70 or about $160 a month, you will retire with over $5 million assuming a 10% yearly gain which is doable over 50 years. That number occurs without you increasing that $160 and even with the ups and down of the market. If you only get half the return, it's still not a bad number to retire on. But the later you start investing in life the harder it becomes to make a sufficient amount to retire.

So in general, yes, I would be wealthy. I would also own the asset unlike now with SS. If you make it to that age, you get thrown on a fixed income that doesn't even pay the basic bills. And if you die before retirement, the govt simply says sorry about your luck. Isn't it Pesoli wonderful?

Side Note: I don't have kids or any mortgage deduction so the income tax definitely hurts me because I actually pay it and never receive a refund or welfare check like most families with kids.

That's the sort of information I was interested in. Thanks.

[Weston White]

why use 4%? Where do you get a 4% guaranteed return? But forget that, so you came up with an impressive $30K after 40 years. Congratulations, you get a new car after 40 years. Or do you? Will the car cost the same if you had an extra $30K?

Personally, I am done with your idiotic posts and until further notice, I will no longer be responding to them. Please, do yourself a favor and use your brain-power to think on your own, at least give it a go every now and then.


And to Zippy, deductions, exemptions, credits, etc., are entirely another issue all on their own, varying entirely from one person onto the next. Deductions and the like, are designated really to serve as candy for the babes, thereby propagating the whole of the income tax scheme as its sort of virtual enabler.

Those sums were intended to serve as a basic example of what really is; however for a bit more clarification: Filing as single for TY-2011 while earning $52,000-$9,500=$42,500; for which the taxable portion is $6,756, equaling 12.99% of the originating $52,000. Clearly, a bit larger than the above mentioned 5%.

[furface]

The biggest cost to the individual of the income tax isn't the nominal amount that individuals pay for the tax. It's the problems associated with compliance, the invasion of privacy, the fact that it rewards cheats like Romney, the fact that despite claims to the contrary it is massively regressive, rewarding the wealthy and penalizing the middle class.

[Zippyjuan]

Personally, I am done with your idiotic posts and until further notice, I will no longer be responding to them. Please, do yourself a favor and use your brain-power to think on your own, at least give it a go every now and then.


And to Zippy, deductions, exemptions, credits, etc., are entirely another issue all on their own, varying entirely from one person onto the next. Deductions and the like, are designated really to serve as candy for the babes, thereby propagating the whole of the income tax scheme as its sort of virtual enabler.

Those sums were intended to serve as a basic example of what really is; however for a bit more clarification: Filing as single for TY-2011 while earning $52,000-$9,500=$42,500; for which the taxable portion is $6,756, equaling 12.99% of the originating $52,000. Clearly, a bit larger than the above mentioned 5%.

The average tax rate is critical since that determines just what you are really paying in income taxes - and thus would have if the income tax did not exist. Let's try a tax calculator- I used this one here- http://www.calcxml.com/calculators/f...kn=#calcoutput and used only the standard deduction. For a family of two filing jointly, the estimated tax liability came out to be $$4,005 or 7.7%. For single, one exemption it came back with $6,592 or yes, over 12%. $52,000 is above the figure posted for incomes of "below $50,000". For income levels of $50,000 to $74,000 it indicates an average tax rate of 7%. Our 12% assumes no deductions taken so that would be the maximum paid by somebody in that bracket- others will have more dedictions reducing the average.

If you - a $12 hour earner today - take your payroll tax of 7.65% and invest it each month at 20 until age 70 or about $160 a month, you will retire with over $5 million assuming a 10% yearly gain which is doable over 50 years. That number occurs without you increasing that $160 and even with the ups and down of the market. If you only get half the return, it's still not a bad number to retire on. But the later you start investing in life the harder it becomes to make a sufficient amount to retire.

So in general, yes, I would be wealthy. I would also own the asset unlike now with SS. If you make it to that age, you get thrown on a fixed income that doesn't even pay the basic bills. And if you die before retirement, the govt simply says sorry about your luck. Isn't it Pesoli wonderful?

So are you investing at that rate? (that percent of your income every month- I highly doubt you can find something consistantly yielding 10% for an investment though).