The deadline was Monday, the Ides of April (the 15th, for those not up on Roman tragedies).
That is (was) the date upon which all Americans of reasonable wealth were supposed to file their individual and/or business/corporate tax returns. If you missed it, there's hell to pay in terms of potential penalties, interest, nagging letters from IRS agents, and possibly audits or visits from gun-toting mercenaries.
The IRS, essentially the collection and enforcement arm of the current tyrant state, has become once again aggressive in their efforts to wring out every last nickel from its customers, the American working class.
But, what are income taxes funding? The U.S. government manages - year in, year out - to spend more than it takes in, borrowing the rest from the Federal Reserve, which has resorted to monetizing the debt, buying back government securities from primary dealers, thus doing an end run around legal precedent that prohibits the Fed from purchasing government bills, notes, and bonds directly.
Late last year, interest on government debt, all $34.8 trillion of it, amounted to over $1 trillion, and is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by the end of 2024 as the federal government exercises absolutely zero restraint on spending. The deficit for fiscal 2024 - ending September 30 - is expected to be well over $2 trillion.
According to the government's own accounting federal income tax revenue for the first six months of fiscal 2024 (October, 2023 - March, 2024) amounted to $1.09 trillion, roughly 50% of the total intake. Social Security and Medicare taxes contributed another 36.67% of the total, meaning all other taxes, including corporate, excise, gas, etc., amounted to less than 15% of government revenue. You, the American public, are paying the lion's share of government spending, most of which, as mentioned, goes to interest on the debt, military, social security and other so-called "entitlements."
The U.S. government didn't start overspending recently. Fiscal deficits began as far back as the 1970s, when the U.S. and the rest of the world abandoned any last vestiges of what was left of the Bretton Woods gold standard. President Nixon took the country off the gold standard in August, 1971 and it's been downhill ever since, with congress after congress - admittedly, mostly the same people for decades - spent to a degree to make drunken sailors on leave appear miserly by comparison.
Information supplied by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) affirm that in 2023, individual income taxes accounted for $2.176 trillion of the government's total take of $4.4 trillion. Payroll taxes, including Social Security and Medicare, added another $1.614 trillion. By comparison, corporate taxes amounted to only $420 billion. People pay into government, while corporations make huge profits and pay little.
Individuals accounted for 86% of all federal government revenue. Of course, congress managed to spend $1.6 trillion more than they took in, financed by the Federal Reserve. It doesn't take a math genius to understand that American taxpayers are not getting anywhere near their money's worth. Worse yet, their money is being rather swiftly depreciated by raging inflation the past three years.
When people filed their taxes and paid the government, they got screwed, again. Such policies can only maintain with a population that is fed misinformation, disinformation, statistical lies, and mountains of corruption at the highest levels of corporations and government.
Being a tax slave is no honor, especially when what you're getting in return is open borders, cities that have turned into cesspools of poverty and crime, money for foreign governments, a massive welfare payments system, all paid for with a currency that is being debased at a heightened pace.
Why?
|
|||
| search engine by freefind |
Related:
The IRS Already Has Your Income Tax Data - So Why Do Americans Still Have to File Their Taxes?
The United States is on the verge of hyper-inflation, thus earning the moniker, "Weimarica", referencing Germany's Weimar Republic from the 1920s.
One of the more notable areas of inflation (aka, currency debasement) is in food, either at the grocery or at restaurants, and, especially, fast food establishments.
On a recent stop at the local grocer, notice was made that the most expensive item on a short shopping list happened to be - of all things - lettuce. A 1.66-lb. head of green romaine rang up at a whopping $4.13.
On the other end, people are beginning to reject higher prices on various items, resulting in dramatic markdowns. The latest incident was a package of six Thomas' Bagels, slashed from the extreme $4.79, down to a more reasonable $1.99. This kind of thing is happening across America, as major national or regional producers - most of which have raised prices to the moon over the past two years - find themselves facing massive overstocking amid increasingly slack demand.
Food inflation at the retail level is somewhat of a novel experience for Americans, who, even in the depths of the Great Depression, were able to afford enough to stave off starvation. Today, it's a different story, one which threatens society's fragile cohesion.
The Conversation, Beverly Moran: 31 Janaury 2022
Byzantine plate and Frankish mines: the provenance of silver in north-west European coinage during the Long Eighth Century (c. 660-820)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2024
Report on Weimerica
