UK taxes are significantly higher than US taxes. If you compare the effective Federal income tax rates of each country (at current dollar/pound exchange rates) you can see that UK taxes are about twice as much as US taxes. The rates get pretty close at £35,000 (right before Brits start falling into the upper bracket) but above or below that number ( Read more... )

It's election season, which means it's also "fact check political discussions between my liberal Mom and conservative Dad" season. Today Dad sent me a simple question with a complicated answer:

What's the accuracy in Mom's blanket statement:
"The rich (defined as having income over 2 million) only pay 16% income tax and should pay more."On one ( Read more... )

Everyone agrees that the national deficit is a problem, but there's less agreement about what to do about it. Everyone agrees that you get rid of theoretical deficits by increasing taxes and cutting spending, but getting rid of real deficits by raising real taxes and cutting real spending is somehow a completely different deal ( Read more... )

The "TEA Party" stands for "Taxed Enough Already". The story goes that out of control government spending causes unreasonable tax burdens. Obama's liberal tax-and-spend policy will cause businesses to flee America to places with lower taxes which will ruin our country. It's not true. Even according to the Heritage Foundation, Americans' tax burdens ( Read more... )

I wanted to write a little more on the common belief that Democrats are irresponsible tax-raising spendthrift liberals and conservatives are fiscally responsible tax-cutting advocates of small government ( Read more... )

Followup to my previous post about what it's like to live under the socialist nightmare of Barack Hussein Obama's socialist boot-heel:

If you really want to talk socialism, talk about the home mortgage interest deduction which has allowed me to reduce my tax burden by "-22 Obamas", from 20% to 12.7%. It doesn't seem right that I should pay less ( Read more... )

Democrats are high taxing, high-spending liberals who raise taxes. Republicans cut taxes because they don't have a big government to pay for. That's the conventional wisdom, anyway. And every year around tax time, some people bitch about how much this President or that President spends on taxes. Recently the Tea Party Movement in particular are up ( Read more... )

In 2001, George Bush had a problem. He wanted to give tax cuts to the rich, but he didn't want it to be obvious how much this would cost the middle class taxpayer or the national debt, and budget proposals come with 10 year cost projections. So the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 gave the rich a variety of tax cuts that ( Read more... )

Libertarians and tax reform advocates have been advocating going Galt. Named after John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, Galt and his fellow individualist captains of industry "go on strike" by withdrawing his entrepreneurial talents from the collectivist common men whose socialist governments and progressive tax structure did not provide sufficient ( Read more... )

matrushkaka's friends are sending her another stupid chain letter.

Yesterday on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed ( Read more... )