i do agree, but i am more curious why taxes were mentioned at all, which is likely to have been his intent.
Maybe I’m just stupid, but I don’t know what texaspyro means exactly.
Yes, SPENT. I was making a lot of money. I’m pretty much a cheapskate (i.e. I’m here). For over 10 years, between 90 and 97% of everything that I paid out went to some form of taxes (income, property, social insecurity, sales, etc). I finally said, “Enough of this crap…”
You lived comfortably on 3 to 7% of your income for 10 years? What was your income tax rate, if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m just having a bit of trouble getting this into perspective.
Effective income tax rates ranged from 35-55% during this period, social insecurity was around 15% (applied to around your first $100K of income), sales tax is 8.5, property taxes are around 2 (and dirt in my neighborhood is now selling for several million dollars an acre (!!!) so even a small lot costs you an ever-increasing quadruple-big-ass bundle each year)
I feal your pain, Texas… Here’s the Neighborhoodscout blurb on the city I live in… I’m sure you can guess what my property tax bill is like…
…Deleted because I realized that the data was quite out of date…
Whatever it is, mine’s bigger :cry:
You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I don’t choose to argue with you about that point.
Yeah, what really irks me is that the Texas constitution forbids a statewide property tax. Many years ago, the state legislature implemented a “Robin Hood” school finance plan where the property rich districts must send money to the property poor ones (our town’s tax rates have gone up by a factor of over 10). Despite Robin Hood being declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court, it is still being done.
I’m not an anarchist or anything like that - In fact, I actually believe quite strongly that SOME taxes are a necessity of a civilized society. Property taxes, however, I feel should be outright illegal/unconstitutional/whatever you want to call it. Simple reason being that Property taxes prevent land/home ownership. A man never owns his home - EVER. It is impossible to outright own land or a home in this country (unless you are one of the few grandfathered allodial title holders - and there aren’t many of those left), and that is a sin against man and a crime against humanity - if you ask me…
PPtk
Hmmm, I wonder if I can get a 50% discount on my taxes. My grandfather was quite the hemi-rrhoidal title holder. 