How much do you *really* pay in taxes?

If you ask most people, they will give you their tax bracket...10, 15, 25, 35%...but that's incorrect. Take a look at your year-end pay stub. Add up all the money that is taken out of your check for various federal, state and local governments. Now add in:

• all the sales taxes you pay
• property taxes
• car registration fees
• professional licensing fees (assessed by government agencies)
• the taxes you pay on alcoholic beverages in restaurants
• traffic tickets (which have nothing to do with public safety & everything to do with generating income for the government)
• marriage license fees
• driver's license fees
• those recycling fees you pay for a new car battery or tires
• that extra amount added to your health insurance premium because the government now requires you to help pay for those who are uninsurable
• gasoline taxes which you pay for every gallon you pump
• airport taxes
• hotel taxes
• capital gains taxes
• IRS penalties for accessing YOUR retirement savings
• the utility taxes we pay on cell phones, electrical service, cable bill, gas, etc.
• All of the products we buy have taxes built into their cost. Manufacturers are taxed by the government, so of course they pass that overhead onto us. (In addition to their payroll, state, local taxes, etc. from above.) So we can figure that another 15-20% of the cost of everything we buy is essentially a tax.

I'm sure there are many, many more ways in which the government is stealing from us that I haven't listed here. They are intentionally sneaky about it because they have to be. Would you willingly give anyone more than half of your annual income?

Why do we allow the government to violate our rights again and again in so many ways every day? Per our Constitution, the government is supposed to be defending our rights, not trampling on them. They are supposed to protect the individual, not steal from the individual to give to the many. Your income is your property and the government is supposed to uphold your property rights.

It is up to each individual American to give themselves the proper education our government schools will not. We have the books, the resources and the brain power to do so. Let's get to it before the government starts banning those books, those resources and the use of our minds. The government has already started its assault against us. When will you start your assault against it?


"In a fully free society, taxation—or, to be exact, payment for governmental services—would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government—the police, the armed forces, the law courts—are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance."

"The principle of voluntary government financing rests on the following premises: that the government is not the owner of the citizens’ income and, therefore, cannot hold a blank check on that income—that the nature of the proper governmental services must be constitutionally defined and delimited, leaving the government no power to enlarge the scope of its services at its own arbitrary discretion. Consequently, the principle of voluntary government financing regards the government as the servant, not the ruler, of the citizens—as an agent who must be paid for his services, not as a benefactor whose services are gratuitous, who dispenses something for nothing." - Ayn Rand, “Government Financing in a Free Society” from The Virtue of Selfishness