Italy's Berlusconi sentenced to jail for tax fraud. This can only happen in a true capitalis t country. Why? Because there are no laws in China, including tax laws!
When you are done with TurboTax this year, it will tell you your "effective tax rate" for 2011. Do you know how this rate is calculated? Ok, every small business owner in Hawaii knows it, or his accountant knows it. If you earn $100 extra, and you pay $25 in tax out of the $100. You can say your top tax rate is 25%, OR, you can say your top "effective tax rate" is 33%, which is based on what you actually get to keep, namely, the $75. Since I only get to keep $66 for every last $100 I make from editing, my top "effective tax rate" is 50%. Why should I work hard?
Do you know how much your income tax is? If you live in China, I bet you don't :) More info on: Taxes on the average worker http://miranda.sourceoecd.org/vl=1758641/cl=12/nw=1/rpsv/factbook2009/10/04/02/index.htm http://miranda.sourceoecd.org/vl=1758641/cl=12/nw=1/rpsv/factbook2009/10/04/02/10-04-02-g1.htm How Much Americans Actually Pay in Taxes http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/how-much-americans-actually-pay-in-taxes/
If you pay income taxes in the US, how much do you really know about taxes? I knew something about income taxes since I have been filing my own for more than 20 years. But, I wish I knew more. (The more you know, the less you need to pay Uncle Sam, legally.) "The current structure of tax brackets has rates that start at 10 percent of income at the low end and rise to 35 percent for the highest earners. In the middle are brackets of 15, 25, 28, and 33 percent. That top bracket doesn't mean the rich pay 35 percent of their adjusted gross income in taxes. Deductions and other factors lower their effective rate to 23 percent of income, the Tax Foundation reckons." From http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0415/Taxes-and-the-rich-How-much-do-they-pay-now So, I thought as long as I am only paying 25% for my "top earning $," I am fine with it. By "top earning $," I mean the last $100 I make, in contrast to the first $100 I make. When I used TurboTax for the first time last year, I realized something was wrong but I was too busy (working) to figure it out. This is my second year of using TurboTax, so I played with it to find out how much taxes I was actually paying for my "top earning $" in 2011. I was quite surprised. The rest is for freelancers, because it does not apply to your income from an institute. Yes, I am still only paying 25% federal income tax for my last $100. BUT, there are other taxes, such as state tax, which I knew, and self-employment tax, which I also knew. So, I was paying $34 in all the taxes for the last $100 I made by editing word by word for a total of 1,400 words. What have I learned from playing with TurboTax? I WILL WORK LESS this year. The less I work, the less money I make, and the less taxes I need to pay. Uncle Sam, do you hear me clearly?
In the US, two things no one can avoid, death and tax. There are different taxes in the US: federal income tax, state income tax, property tax, and GE tax, among others. Most people in the US know what sales tax is, but if you have ever visited Hawaii you should have noticed that you are taxed for buying a bottle of water at Seven-Eleven (in addition to the bottle fees). So, how many of us who live in Hawaii actually under what GE tax is? I certainly didn’t, until very recently. One day, I was so bored, and typed in “GE tax vs. sales tax.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_receipts_tax In particular, tax-exempt universities may NOT be exempted from Hawaii’s GE tax (according to http://www.state.hi.us/tax/taxfacts/tf96-01.pdf ). 11. Are tax-exempt organizations exempt from the general excise tax when they buy goods and services? No. Because the general excise tax is levied on the business receiving the income rather than on the customer, businesses are subject to the general excise tax on transactions with tax-exempt organizations because businesses are not tax-exempt even if their customers are. Therefore, tax-exempt organizations will have the general excise tax passed on to them when they buy goods and services. Tax-exempt organizations are only exempt from paying the general excise tax on certain income which they receive.
标签: tax
