american taxes are way too low.

after listening to you guys moan and whimper, you almost had me convinced. but I've just looked over the federal income tax summary provided to us by our friendly h&r block, and reduced to its essentials, american taxes are a bargain! of course, you don't get much for yours...i know you only have my word for this, but as far as i know, we are scrupulously honest in our tax dealings, and our accountant guarantees so in writing.

first, we are very comfortably middle class (we can afford to claim the maximum ira contribution allowable by law). i realize not all american families can afford to do that, but since your government insists on subsidizing the affluent, it would be positively unamerican for us to turn it down. other than that, we do no fancy tax accounting, we take no special deductions, shelter no income, etc. so if you can't afford an ira, get a second job and quit complaining.

my spouse and i live in a state with no state income tax. our income consists of mostly salaries, a small pension income and a little from a home business (yes i'm actually a real capitalist, i just don't play one on the internet), and we file jointly, absorbing the full marriage penalty (actually it's not a penalty at all, its a license to steal).

it's none of your business how much we earn, but here's the breakdown by percentages: 15.3% of our total income goes to oncle sam, not too shabby by free world standards. however, a big piece of that goes to social security and medicare tax, which i consider an investment in my retirement, not a tax at all. when you subtract that from our tax bill, the fed only gets a whopping 8.6% of our income. that is very, ahem, reasonable, imho.

as can be expected, we did even better, relatively speaking, during the bush years. in the 2008 tax year (h&r block kindly lists last year's figures for comparison), our irs bill was 7.9%. it was probably higher this year because we earned 9.8% more than we did last year. Sure the breakdown is a little different, but we still earned more money and paid (relatively speaking) less taxes.

what a country!