I was blown away at the sort of things that you can 'write off' once I started working freelance with my wife. You get raped in this country if you are an 'employee'.
The way the tax system works is kind of insane. When you are really poor, you pretty much just get it all back at the end of the year. If you are doing okay up to middle class working as an employee you simply have to fork out a big chunk of change to the government every year.
If you are middle class up to just below what I'd consider wealthy, this is where you get bent over the most. I think that this is why politicians are always going on about the middle class. When I finally started making some good money in my career, I was blown away at how much money I had to pay in taxes.
I have to say, I am all about some kind of a fair tax where no one has an advantage. Like something simple, such as all purchases are taxed a certain percent. Why does it have to be so damn complicated? And why does the same money get taxes so many times? Why do we have 'property tax'? That seems really wrong to me. If you own something it should be yours, in my opinion. Of course maybe there's something I don't understand, who knows.
I think it is so damn complicated in order to benefit those that have the wherewithal and connections to make said exemptions happen. At one point in my professional life i had a salary of over 110K / year. I made less money at the end of that than i did at my prior position where i made 70K. There is definitely a system and i don't know what it is all about or how it works.
I do believe that our politicians are very aware of how it works and are paid to keep it the way it is though.... but that just comes from a profound lack of trust in basically any politician (we should have been politicians)
When I taught 1/4 time I brought home 1/2 of what I brought home when I was full time.
the most fair tax would be like a sales tax where every time a dollar changed hands a nickel would be sent to the government. No exemptions for anything. If someone pays you a buck to do your job 5 cents would go to the government. If you buy something a nickel would be sent to the gov. It would be simple but could be abused if not monitored carefully.
I made less money at the end of that than i did at my prior position where i made 70KExactly! There is a spot in there where you lose money by jumping into the next tax bracket. It's sort of in the 'upper middle class' area. You start to really lose a lot of money. The only way to break free is to manage to make your way to being a millionaire. And we know that's not always possible.
My wife did a rush project earlier this year where she made around $10k in one week (VERY unusual). This particular company pays her through a temp agency which automatically takes taxes out. They took more than 60% in taxes. All I know is, we better get some of that back at the end of the year. She worked a ridiculous number of hours to get the job done, and that is not a typical paycheck at all.
or how about the stories about how the winners of that Fortnite (night?) competition in NYC where the kid had half of the winnings immediately taken away. Taxes, good grief. Don't tell anyone but i pay almost no taxes other than sales tax over here. Of course I have a substantially lower salary but i wonder if it all kinda balances out in the end.