Are taxes in the US that painful? In the UK I do my tax return every year and it takes me all of about 30 minutes and I only need a few browser tabs open in front of me (typically just my broker and HMRC)
The US is deliberatly difficult because
1) Companies make a fortune selling "solutions" to this, thus spend a lot of money ensuring it continues
2) Americans don't like taxes, so by making it more obvious the government is taking your tax money, and making it painful in the process, to fund their military, it helps cement that idea there's should be a small state
The US takes 27% of the GDP in tax, the UK 33%, although personal taxes for normal people tend to be about the same, its just that the US pretty much requires an accountant, or at least some expensive proprietary software, and hours of your time.
That would be another thing that would be great for the GAO (U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)) to produce reports about.
Where are (my / your) Tax dollars going? How does that compare to other countries, in absolute, per person, GDP and other metrics, etc?
I don't think taxes goes to healthcare (either in France or the UK). I think that's paid up for with your social security contribution?
NI is about 19% of tax revenue, Income Tax 27%, VAT 18%, local taxes (council tax and business rates) about 10%.
It doesn't include other receipts, things like profits from state owned business.
Total government revenue (about 10% higher than total taxation) does not cover total government expenditure, hence a deficit, and some branches of economics considers revenue and expenditure separate in a system which controls its own currency.
Either way, the US spends more on government healthcare (per head of total population) then the UK, the decision not to have universal healthcare isn't a funding one
Caused a few wars though
The US as a whole in 2019 spent 16% of its GDP on Health, 4% on Military
The UK meanwhile spent 10% on Health and 3% on Military
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
They do report that.
https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spend...
https://datalab.usaspending.gov/about/
""Who We Are
This site was created by the Office of the Chief Data Officer at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service), which is part of the Department of the Treasury. Fiscal Service is responsible for managing public debt, central payment systems, and government accounting. Our team is comprised of data analysts, developers, and UX designers who are passionate about putting trusted data in the hands of the people.""
So that site is created by the disbursement arm of the bureaucracy, which explains the overly generic output bins as well as no metric for adjusting based on taxes paid in by an individual, nor for area of the country. I was rather hoping for something with an order of magnitude or two of greater depth that dynamically adjusted the context of graphical representation based on what mattered to the viewer.
There is no CBDC needed for that.
(In fact, all the article’s fears about payment prevention and free speech restriction are all possible without CBDC, and already in place in some segments that gained popular support, which minorities and SW have been complaining about across the decades.)
For most people, no. However, as you make your way up the income bracket or acquire investments or property it gets more and more complicated.
…and if you mess it up the IRS will be sure to tell you what you’ve done wrong and what you actually owed.
(check username)