Reason.tv Redux: W-2 WTF?!?! Tax facts to make your head explode!

Is it patriotic to pay taxes? And if so, who are the most patriotest Americans? Who are the least? How many words are in the tax code? How much do patriotic Americans pay to prepare their taxes? How long do you have to work in a year to earn enough to pay your taxes?

The answers to these and other questions add up to one big W-2 WTF.

Produced by Meredith Bragg. Written by Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

Note: This was originally released April 10, 2009. Sadly, it still holds up.

Comments

[Joe M]

Nice video, but I accidentally the whole thing.

[sage]

Taxes are patriotic. Don't you believe in ROADS?

[Artus]

That's right. ONLY the government can map routes and build roads. Imagine some private company laying asphalt. Like that's possible!

[Good Lt.]

Is that Battles (Atlas) as the bkg. music? Insane stuff!

[SugarFree]

It is patriotic to support the basic and very limited functions of a properly constrained government. All else is taken from me without consent with the implied violence of Federal, state, and local thugs.

There is a word for property taken from you without your consent. But I am loath to wad panties this late in the afternoon.

[dave b.]

And that word is THEFT! Wad 'em up!

[Cabeza de Vaca]

Cops caught on video beating Maryland students then lying about what happened.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/.....tml?hpt=T1

[Cabeza de Vaca]

I forgot to add they were from the Prince County Police Department in Maryland.

[sage]

I was going to ask if that was the same force that shot that mayor's dogs. Was that them?

[Cabeza de Vaca]

From the article.

"A Prince George's County, Maryland, police officer has been suspended, and prosecutors are investigating an incident -- caught on video -- in which officers wielding nightsticks beat a University of Maryland student, officials said Tuesday."

I think so.

[Pip]

That is so fucked up. It's not even debatable.

[Steff]

This is an excellent argument for major house-cleaning operations in that department from the top, right on down, under grilling by the public.

[cynical]

When you say "major house-cleaning operations in that department from the top, right on down, under grilling by the public", you're using that as a euphemism for dropping an incendiary bomb on the police station from a plane, right?

[JR]

Charlie Rangel is the slimiest turd of them all.

[Jeffersonian]

And it's not like he ain't got some first-class competition, either.

[kwais]

To NOT pay your taxes is I think the most brave and patriotic thing one can do right now.

[Grammar Nazi]

Make my WHAT explode?

[Double Post Nazi]

You can say that again!

[Grammar Nazi]

Make my WHAT explode?

[sage]

What gramma said. Will it make my colon explode? Because it does that already quite often.

[SugarFree]

Maybe you need to cut back on wheat products.

[Pip]

I heard a Japanese doctor say not to eat brown rice. It ferments in the gut. I guess that's not a good thing.

[Dagny T.]

Celiac disease is NOT patriotic. There's no amber waves of gluten-free rice flour, bitches.

[SugarFree]

Would it be if you pooped an American flag?

[J. C. Hale]

"Reason.tv Redux: W-2 WTF?!?! Tax facts to make your [WHAT?] explode!

"Nick Gillespie | April 13, 2010

"Is it patriotic to pay taxes? And if so, who [VERB?] the most patriotest Americans?"

[R C Dean]

The IRS, that;s who [VERB]s the most patriotest Americans.

[ev]

I said it then and I'll repeat: way to rock out Battles in the vid.

[Nick Gillespie]

Both missing words were found, uninjured, and added.

[Jeffersonian]

They obviously haven't been hanging out around the Prince George's County fuzz.

[Joe Biden]

I got away with saying "fucking" on national TV, and I didn't get fined by the FCC, because they dare not fuck with me. They know better.

[The FCC]

(muttering under breath)

F***er.

[heller]

Now THAT is a big fucking deal.

[Thesmo]

This video only discusses the income tax. If you take into consideration FICA, medicare, sales and property taxes, the poor and middle class pay a much larger share of all taxes in the US. In fact, the rich in the US pay a smaller share of taxes than in almost any industrialized country.

[Chux]

Agree with Thesmo. Two other points: Percentage is crap. These people are still making millions upon millions of dollars in addition to all their illiquid assets. Also, it's funny to think that people feel so entitled and defensive of their FEDERALLY ISSUED CURRENCY like it's their damn dog or something.

I don't care how great you are at trading and selling companies at the right time, your life is not worth hundreds of hard-working American lives making 30-60k.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness hopefully does not include gluttony and greed... or maybe we need to have a different conversation.

[James]

Do you want federal policy to dictate your morality, though? I think greed is icky and that people with all those bazillions ought to practice philanthropy (Bill Gates style) but I don't think that should be enforced with Federal oversight.

Thesmo, Chux, do some research. You're completely wrong.

[Sean]

yes, but what about the other percentage that wouldn't give the rest of their enormous untaxed income to charity. if one was going to do it in the first place, what is wrong with someone making the rest do the right thing?

[Artus]

Huh? The richest Americans don't buy enormous pieces of property, luxury cars and other expensive items that require major amounts of sales tax? Do they not own much more property than do the poor, and subsequently pay huge property tax bills? Do wealthy business owners not have to match their employees Social Security contributions, something those without employees do not do? On what planet do the wealthiest simple sit back and count their cash, living in tiny homes and owning nothing?
It's amazing how people want it both ways. They complain about the rich smugly owning so much and looking down from their ivory towers, and then pretend the tax burden of the wealthy doesn't reflect their huge property, toys, employee costs, corporate taxation, unemployment taxes, worker's comp taxes, inheritance tax, and penalization for personal income, etc.--things the poor simply don't pay.