For those who are not familiar with USA revolutionary history, the Boston Tea Party was a riot against an increase in tax on imported tea imposed by the king of England without any consultation with the British North American colonies. The actual complete phrase was "No taxation without representation." The irony is, many Trump supporters are not saying anything about Trump's unilateral decision to impose tariffs, bypassing the representation Congress is supposed to provide.
Alt text: A two panel comic. Top panel has a title of 1776, and a white man is yelling angrily. The word bubble says "Pay a 3% tax on tea and paper. Screw that! Revolution!" The bottom panel has the title Now and a white man looking despondent. The word bubble says "Pay 40% of your income. Sure that's totally fine."
Not to mention it’s extremely rare for someone to have an effective combined tax burden of 40%.
It's really not. We pay a shit-ton of tax.
If you're single in CA, earn $150,000 and own a home (although the property tax only contributes a few percent), your tax burden is 40%.
Total=59,553.67
59.5/150=39.7%
But hey, at least this isn't one of those European countries where they provide great social services but tax you like crazy! /s
I take some issue with some of those numbers. My calculations look at the tax table at 150k with standard deduction, shows 52333/150000 =0.349. And even 35% takes some working at not minimizing your liability; no mortgage deduction, no tax advantaged savings etc.
Good call. I forgot to take the standard deduction. Doing that brings my calculation down to 37%.