Another blast from the past. Remember that this was 22 years ago and
the taxes are higher today than they were then.

============================ Politics Fidonet Echo
\=======================
From: Matthew Russotto 1:273/216 09 Nov 97
19:03:00
To: Vern Humphrey 09 Nov 97
19:03:00
Subj:
Taxes ========================================================================
===
In a message dated 11-08-97 VERN HUMPHREY wrote to ROSS SAUER:

"Americans are suffering from a 70% tax burden."

Let's see.. let's assume someone in the top marginal tax rate,
who has the highest income which is fully taxed by social security

(it

drops off at a certain income level), and California income tax... I
come up with maybe 45%.

Now add in sales tax and the "employer's contribution" to the FICA
tax -- which YOU, not your employer, earn -- that's another 10%

to 15%.

Add the employer's contribution to both numerator and denominator,
however.

Next come various excise taxes, gasoline tax, real estate tax,
personal property tax, sewage and water tax, tax on the
electricity and phone bills, fishing and hunting licenses, driver's licenses, car tags, boating license, and so on, and you get up

around

70%.

I suspect there's some double-counting going on there. A rough cross
check --
average income in 1992 was $23,227. Federal revenues for that year
were
about $1,091,692 million. Total state revenue was $741,857 million.
Employed population was 117,598 thousand.

This gives total income at a staggering $2,731,450 million

Total taxes at $1,833,550 million

For a figure of about 67%. Hmm, maybe not so much double counting at
all!
Subtracting out import tariffs and corporate income taxes would drop the
figure a little, but not much.

Alice4Mac 2.4.4 E QWK Eval:16Dec96

Origin: Life begins at 100...MPH

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