Taxes

1179 Words3 Pages

The federal and state governments provide the American citizens with all of the basic necessities within our communities and society that is taken for granted. Programs responsible for assistance in times of need, providing a quality standard of living, and maintaining the strongest military in the world costs incomprehensible amounts of money and could never exist without taxes from the American people. Taxes are payments made by individuals and businesses to support the government and its services. The constitution grants that congress “shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises and to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the people”. Taxes paid by Americans redistribute wealth towards their central governments to go towards creating and maintaining everything that makes the U.S. a leading industrialized nation.

Federal tax laws are run by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which is an agency under the U.S. Treasury Department. The federal government makes $2 trillion in revenue each year through taxes and borrowing. Money is borrowed by selling federal securities, which include bonds, notes, and certificates. Savings bonds are the most popular, for that investors are able to receive interest on the money they lend to the government. There are many different kinds of taxes administered by the government which tax individuals, companies, programs, luxuries, and international goods. Individual income tax makes up for over half of the government’s income each year, in which the government takes a portion of the citizen’s income based on how much money they earn. This type of tax is a progressive tax which means it’s based on the person’s ability to pay, being that wea...

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...n more government spending and thus more taxes than the previous plan. Furthermore, a national sales tax would vastly encourage spending outside the U.S. since Americans would be able to buy cheaper goods overseas causing less consumption within the U.S. markets. All of this results in less spending and could easily result in the collapse of the U.S. dollar. Nonetheless over time it may encourage Americans to save more money, and ultimately have more money. Ultimately it would be opposed by the majority of Americans, whom fall below the middle class level. In theory the concept seems like it could effectively work, but when the smallest percentage of the richest Americans support almost half of the government while still remaining in the top percentile, the income tax least affects the average American and still encourages them to spend and support the U.S. markets.

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