From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun May 26 2002 - 11:03:04 MDT
Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> At 10:51 AM 5/24/02 -0700, Brian D Williams wrote:
>
> >>Maybe a child of one of those breeders will one day find a cure
> >>for cancer? aging? senility? - so you may yet benefit.
>
> >They will find a cure and I will not be able to afford it since
> >unlike their parents I paid for their education, and these things
> >aren't free.
>
> I don't understand this. Do you mean that people in the USA with children
> *don't* contribute to taxes for the education of the next generation, but
> instead salt away that proportion of their earnings so they can pay instead
> for their own future medical expenses? What a strange society.
People with kids get a deduction from their gross income in their income
tax calculations for each child, I think $1000 per brat at the moment.
At the same time they can salt away $2400 per adult per year in a tax
deferred retirement account (i.e. you pay income taxes on money taken
out after retirement, with the compound interest in between being free
of capital gains taxes).
At the same time, there is this myth of a 'marriage tax' whereby it is
claimed that those who are married pay more in taxes than those who are
not, when in actuality the perception is due to the increase in expenses
for having kids.
The problem is that people with dependents don't treat their dependents
as employees in their taxes. If you have a non-working spouse raising
four kids, and you are bringing home $80k per year, you can pay your
spouse and each kid $14k per year on the books, thus putting your entire
family income into the lowest tax bracket of 10%, versus the 28% (I
think) bracket you'd be in if you just filed it as all your own income.
Sure it takes more bookkeeping, but saving nearly a sixth of your income
is worth it.
If families kept their books in this fashion, it would be clear that
people with no dependents are required to pay a far greater share of
their income in taxes.
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