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Taxes? That can't possibly be right. Average American household pays a small fraction of their income in taxes. Unless they somehow got a huge, expensive house and have the mortgage paid off, I don't see how their income could possibly be dominated by taxes over, say, healthcare, or food.

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A family that makes 80k spends about

- 9400 on federal income taxes

- 12,000 on payroll taxes (including corp chunk b/c of economics)

- 3000-9000 on sales/property/stage income taxes

That's a pretty big chunk.

I guess I don't really count payroll taxes since it's not a line item in my budget. Anyway, that's certainly a bigger chunk than I was envisioning.

Income tax is not the only tax.

First off there is payroll tax.

Then there are sales taxes.

And don't forget property tax.

I am probably forgetting something.

Well if they're buying gasoline in California, or cigarettes in Australia taxes can be a huge part of the pricetag even if they're not thinking of it as taxes. You can see various taxes and fees if you look at the receipt of an airline ticket or a bill from a Telecoms company. I admit the fee they add to fund 911 calls isn't typically large but every little bit adds up

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