Think Your Taxes Are Bad?
Every year, you grimace as you sign your return. Imagine what it's like in Belgium or Hungary, where taxes can take half your pay. Plus: the wackiest taxes on record.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Taxes/P148855.asp?GT1=8011
Excerpts:
For a family with one wage-earner and two children, only Iceland and Ireland have a lower income tax burden than the U.S., according to the most recent data for 2005.
At the top, Sweden, Turkey, France and Poland impose the biggest tax burdens on families, but in most of those countries families get added social services, such as secure pensions and health care.
“Citizens in these other countries are paying more money, but they are getting more back, in terms of social programs,” said Christopher Heady, head of tax policy for the Paris-based think tank Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. “It’s a choice the electorate makes.”
...
Noncompliance is hard to estimate, but by most international comparisons, Americans are paying the highest fraction of what they owe, experts said.
“So we may bellyache, but we pay,” said Bill Ahern, spokesman for the Tax Foundation Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research group, who said part of that compliance may be the result of fear of the IRS. “But it may also be the amount is more reasonable. The higher the tax, the greater the incentive to evade,” he said.
Read on to find out about the wackiest taxes and view the table of tax burdens around the world. =) Happy Easter Monday!
Oh all right, here's a sneak preview:
Last year, Tennessee became the latest of more than 20 states to tax illegal drugs. Under the law, when you acquire an illegal drug, you have 48 hours to report to the state and pay your tax, although you aren‘t required to identify yourself. Once you‘ve paid, you’ll receive stamps to put on your illegal substance to show evidence you paid the tax. You don’t have to identify yourself to pay the tax.
Hate these taxes?
Well, you can take the path of one of the original tax protesters, Englishwoman Lady Godiva. In the 11th century, she successfully reduced a tax assessment on her husband, the Earl of Mercia, by riding naked on a white horse through the streets of Coventry.
In fact, taxes have been around nearly as long as there have been kings and queens, dictators and governments to levy them. And historically, some taxes were even wackier than those we have today. For example:
In England, William Pitt the Younger introduced a tax on every property with more than six windows. The taxes, levied during the 1700s and into the early 1800s, were used to pay for military campaigns in Ireland and elsewhere. As a result of the tax, many windows were bricked up.
click the link above to see the other weird taxes people paid.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Taxes/P148855.asp?GT1=8011
Excerpts:
For a family with one wage-earner and two children, only Iceland and Ireland have a lower income tax burden than the U.S., according to the most recent data for 2005.
At the top, Sweden, Turkey, France and Poland impose the biggest tax burdens on families, but in most of those countries families get added social services, such as secure pensions and health care.
“Citizens in these other countries are paying more money, but they are getting more back, in terms of social programs,” said Christopher Heady, head of tax policy for the Paris-based think tank Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. “It’s a choice the electorate makes.”
...
Noncompliance is hard to estimate, but by most international comparisons, Americans are paying the highest fraction of what they owe, experts said.
“So we may bellyache, but we pay,” said Bill Ahern, spokesman for the Tax Foundation Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research group, who said part of that compliance may be the result of fear of the IRS. “But it may also be the amount is more reasonable. The higher the tax, the greater the incentive to evade,” he said.
Read on to find out about the wackiest taxes and view the table of tax burdens around the world. =) Happy Easter Monday!
Oh all right, here's a sneak preview:
Last year, Tennessee became the latest of more than 20 states to tax illegal drugs. Under the law, when you acquire an illegal drug, you have 48 hours to report to the state and pay your tax, although you aren‘t required to identify yourself. Once you‘ve paid, you’ll receive stamps to put on your illegal substance to show evidence you paid the tax. You don’t have to identify yourself to pay the tax.
Hate these taxes?
Well, you can take the path of one of the original tax protesters, Englishwoman Lady Godiva. In the 11th century, she successfully reduced a tax assessment on her husband, the Earl of Mercia, by riding naked on a white horse through the streets of Coventry.
In fact, taxes have been around nearly as long as there have been kings and queens, dictators and governments to levy them. And historically, some taxes were even wackier than those we have today. For example:
In England, William Pitt the Younger introduced a tax on every property with more than six windows. The taxes, levied during the 1700s and into the early 1800s, were used to pay for military campaigns in Ireland and elsewhere. As a result of the tax, many windows were bricked up.
click the link above to see the other weird taxes people paid.
Jean
posted by t12cjc | 5:56 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home