danielpalos
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #1,821
We don't have a general warfare clause or a general defense clause;Who are you kidding? Federal taxes are just the start. Then add social security/medicare. And we are ready to start the race. We are taxed at that rate also. Only we add other things like massive security state and military that denies us things. We do get a benefit of our fiat currency used as a medium of exchange without a surcharge for much of our business and trade. There are hundreds and thousands of taxes we pay. And it adds up. Also, many of the products made here are taxed at each level of production until the completed product. That can be 20% of the cost before we are charged again as a sales tax and more.There are taxes on capital gains. They need to be raised!
If you want to stop growth, that's exactly what you do.
The reason capital gains taxes are not ridiculous is to encourage investments in the US. If tax rates are too high, the risk of making money is not worth it. Investors would rather invest in tax-free bonds or off shore investments.
So now we make capital gains taxes 50%. You purchased your home in 1990 for 150K. Today you sold it for 250K. You made 100K from your long-term investment. But now you owe government 50K of that for capital gains taxes.
The United States has one of the lowest tax rates in the world in terms of a revenue collected per year as a percentage of its GDP. U.S. tax revenues are only about 22% of annual GDP while in a country like Norway, they amount to nearly 60% of GDP. Is business and investment dead in Norway? Nope. Norway has a strong economy.
If it was just Federal taxes it would only be 17% of GDP. Adding in the other taxes it comes out to only 22% of GDP. There are 197 countries in the world. With total taxes only being 22% of GDP, there are 134 countries around the world that have higher taxes as a percentage of GDP.
Of all the countries in the world, the United States has one of the lowest tax rates. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, their collected taxes per year amount to 39.3% of their annual GDP.
why do we have alleged and global wars on crime, drugs, and terror?