Income Taxes: What Do They Go?

Income Taxes: What Do They Go?

Remember the Boston Tea Party? In 1773, the king in England and his Parliment had just initiated the Tea Tax – and the settlers didn’t accept it. Many of them dressed up as Indians, boarded a trade ship from England with tea on it, and pushed a whole lot of the tea (it was the cargo) overboard. It was their way of rebelling against the new tax. Because the king believed it was Indians, nothing was done to those settlers, but it didn’t stop the tax. This tax came about the same time period as the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act (which both lowered taxes), but this was just too much.

Taxes have never been popular, as the Tea Tax showed, but taxes are a “necessary evil” in our modern society. The payment of income taxes funds the government in many ways. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Not Just A Little Red Schoolhouse

The first type of public education in America was a one-room schoolhouse, where all the grades were educated together – when it wasn’t harvest time. The room was fueled with a wood stove, and the students used Our public education is funded by our income tax money. Though some people choose to homeschool or send their children to a private school, the vast majority of Americans attend public school for at least a portion of their education. Though many people don’t like our public education program – especially in comparison to other countries – at least it does get many students educated fairly well.

I Don’t Know What You’ve Been Told…

…But the military is also funded by the government, specifically from our income taxes money. Whether you are for or against the war, most people would agree that it is important for American to maintain a strong military. And what funds the military? The money we pay as income taxes.

Respecting Your Elders

In our country, we pay money in to the Social Security program our whole working life. They just automatically take it as a deduction from our paychecks – whether we want them to or not. That money is set aside to give back to us when we’re old and gray and can’t work anymore. At least, in theory it is. In reality, the money is given to other people, older and grayer than we are, who are already receiving Social Security payments. The idea is that our children, when they work, will be funding our Social Security. It should work out just fine. But in reality, often the money input into the system isn’t enough to cover the number of people now receiving Social Security payments – and so our government is paying a lot of that. You got it – it comes from our income taxes.

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