— Collectively, Americans will spend more on taxes in 2016 than they will on food, clothing, and

[a kennedy]

housing.

A tax advocacy group on Wednesday revealed that Americans spend more on taxes than their whole budget for food, clothing and housing.

The Tax Foundation, in its annual report on when the nation as a whole has earned enough to pay its taxes, announced the date as April 24.

"Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much federal, state, and local tax revenue is collected each year to pay for government goods and services," said Tax Foundation Analyst Scott Greenberg. "Arguments can be made that the tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, it's important for taxpayers to understand the cost of government. Tax Freedom Day helps people relate to that cost."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/americans-spend-more-on-taxes-than-food-clothing-housing-combined/article/2587799

Is this true?? WOW if it is.

[Sam_Fields]

1. This is right wing garbage

[cheapdate]

2. Indeed it is.

[jberryhill]

3. Duh

And if your head is in a furnace and your feet are in a freezer then, on average, you feel fine.

That is a tremendously irrelevant metric of anything. As it turns out, people who aren't making enough money to feed, clothe and house themselves are also not paying any significant amount of taxes either. People who are paying substantial amounts of taxes are not really worried about affording food, clothes or housing. But this ridiculous comparison is aimed at making it seem that people are going hungry, naked or homeless because their taxes are too high. That's just s stupid notion.

As if there is some guy living on the street and hungry because he had unexpectedly high capital gains last year.

[madville]

4. I was just looking at my 2015 spreadsheet

Taxes were a total of about $11,000 last year (federal income, FL state sales tax, utility and property taxes). Edit: Forgot about social security and Medicare, that's an extra $5,000 as well, so about $16,000 total counting those as taxes.

Food was about $5,000, clothing was $1,500, and housing was $7,000($9,300 if you count utilities).

They're both in the same ballpark, paying any and all of it sucks though!

[jberryhill]

8. If your income tripled, would you eat more?

That's the problem with this meaningless comparison.

If your income tripled, your food expenses wouldn't.

[madville]

12. and if my income went to zero

I'd spend a lot less on food and be homeless.

[jberryhill]

14. Well you'd quit paying taxes well before then

Nobody paying a substantial amount in taxes is going hungry.

What I pay in taxes is much more than what I spend on food, clothing and housing. But that's because what I pay in taxes is also more than the median US income.

There's only so much food a person can buy.

[NutmegYankee]

5. It's garbage.

Housing alone is a higher expense.

[madville]

7. Lots of variables

If someone owns their house with no payment it's completely believable that total taxes would be much higher than housing costs.

[jberryhill]

10. Depends on who you are

I own my home and run a business. Next to the practically nothing I pay for housing, my federal taxes are orders of magnitude higher. Likewise I easily pay ten times more in taxes than on food. So, for the purposes of keeping the "collective" tax/necessities figure over unity, I probably have most of my neighborhood covered.

[HassleCat]

6. Well, sure. Remember the original TEA Party?

Somebody has to pay for F-35 fighters, surveillance by a dozen different agencies, arming city police forces with tanks and rockets, the for-profit prison system, and so on. I was sympathetic to the TEA Party when they first came out, before they became just the crazy wing of the crazy party. The TEA in their name stood for "taxed enough already," and I agree with that. We pay sufficient taxes that we should expect, maybe even demand, healthcare for everybody, good public education, a solid infrastructure, and so on. We are taxed enough, and we should get good government in return.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. Take that right wing bullshit and peddle it elsewhere.

[cheapdate]

11. Is it true? Good grief.

Look at your pay stub and your tax return. Add up your SSI and Medicaid payroll deductions. Add your federal and state income taxes paid and your property tax, if any. Is it 1/3 of your gross?

Mine is not, it's about 15%, slightly more than Mitt Romney's. My "tax freedom" day is around the end of February.

Regardless, I pay my taxes as is my civic obligation.

[X_Digger]

13. "Collectively"

I see something similar when folks talk about how back in the days of the Roman Empire, the average life expectancy was 25 years-- they imagine senior citizens being rare, and 30 year old folks dropping like something from Logan's Run.

The reason that wasn't the case (Socrates was 70 when he committed suicide, Plato as 75/76) is that 'collectively' the average skews to the left when you take into account all the infants who never saw their first birthday. If you made it to adulthood, chances are you'd live to about the same age you do today.