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If you count all the taxes, fees, licenses, tolls, which you pay, you will reach the astounding amount of 49.20% of your total income. Government has always been very creative in hiding the real tax burden from the public. First you must compute your federal taxes, to which you must add state, county, and local taxes, then property taxes, and finally the cost of taxes to all the businesses you frequent and the percentage of taxes that constitute the selling price. Also fees, licenses, building permits, and access permits (parks per example). I should at this point advice that no nation in the history of government ever survived with a tax rate exceeding 50%. A great deal of this taxation is double taxation and in many cases triple taxation on the same item. Per example estate taxes or as they are more commonly called death duties. Consider now this tax is levied against an estate whose entire accumulation was taxed every year. Or we can view capital gains taxes, which are taxes on the growth of an asset that was taxed already. Or taxes on savings interest which is a tax on already taxed asset. If we follow the simple trail of a product, that we all use, we come to a startling conclusion. Gasoline; A refiner purchases raw oil from an oil producer who has paid a tax on the profit he makes #1. The refiner pays property tax #2 environmental taxes #3 licensing fees #4 it is then distribution the cost of which is substantially increased through road fees #5 distribution licenses #6. The gasoline now in the hands of the retailer collects sales tax #7. On the price of $2.00 per gallon the actual production cost without any taxes is about $.92 cents.1 so we see that you at a price of $ 2.00 pay $ 1.08 in taxes. How did we get into this pickle? It all happened in 1913 when the worst congress in American history relinquished their management of our currency, and instituted a, promised at the time, "limited time income tax". It was promised to be temporary, and only for the duration of the "Great War" a war America had nothing whatever to do with. Worse yet, they installed a "Progressive Tax", actually regressive because it punishes industry and self-reliance. This tax increase by percentage as your income rises; it is the second principle of Karl Marx's communist theorem that he had plagiarized from Adam Weishaupt's Illuminists. The error in a regressive tax is that it punishes success. If I earn $ 1,000. and pay a 10% tax on that earning I pay $ 100. in tax, and if you earn $100,000 you pay $10,000 in taxes. Why should the man who earned $100,000 pays at a differing percentage rate from a lower income earner? Subsequently beginning in the Wilson administration government began to expand into matters into which they have no business to be in. This socialist expansion accelerated dramatically with our first communist president FDR. For those who disapprovingly disagree Wallace was FDR's first VP, he was removed from the ticket because at had become accepted assumption that he was a communist. Furthermore FDR staffed the entire OSS, the forerunner to the CIA, with communists and communist sympathizers who were when Truman disbanded that agency sent over to the State Department where one might think they still reside. This governmental socialization continued with every Democrat administration all the way through Clinton. That is not to say that the Republicans were opposed and in fact several Republican administrations were more than just active in expanding government power. The most pernicious executives were Clinton, and Carter. We have scores of executive departments and even cabinet level divisions who have no constitutional grounds for existing. Housing and Urban Development, Energy and Education. In fact it is a proven case that ever since the creation of the Department of Education student aptitude has gone down every year. While the prime accomplishments of the Department of Energy have been shortages of fuel, diesel fuel freezing, and the wholesale giveaway of nuclear technology to communist China. Carter without doubt was since the administration of FDR the most prolific in expanding government of the Democrats while G.W. Bush shows signs of even outdoing FDR. Consider the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, the most preconscious expansion of federal power and curtailment of individual freedoms in our history. Christ said, "Give onto Cesar ..." Cesar or differently government is Cesar as well as God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost all rolled into one. They have replaced Christianity with Secular Humanism, (the new state religions) and have by statute, incrementalism, and illegality, circumvented our entire founding instruments and principals. In this quest they are revising honest history with make-believe, and freedom both economic as well as social with despotism. Individual rights, (God given according to our founding fathers) have been replaced by group-rights thus meeting socialist criteria. In consideration of all these happenings we should think about the consequences of these actions and who and how they are controlled. When congress in 1913 abdicated its responsibility over the issuance of currency (Coin) they also relinquished control of the economy, the debasement of value, and control over the collection and variance of taxation. It is no longer the congress of the constitution that determines our tax rate it is the board of governors of the FRS.2 As Baron Rothschild so aptly put it "You give me power over the currency and I don't care who runs the government". Congress may well control the levers of spending, but the FRS informs congress as to the amount of inflation caused by their devaluation due to fiat paper increase that must be taxed to pay off the loan documents they have issued. The Treasury, which prints the fiat money, runs their presses at a rate of 6,000 sheets of 32 bills per hour, with the arrival of Greenspan and co. this was increased to multi-shift operation. Or did you perhaps think that the 90's bubble economy was an accident? These bills are then sold to the FRS for $.01 cents per bill, which according to law [regulates the value of money]. In fact the fiat money has no value, as we have often been told by members of the Treasury as well as those from the FRS "the value of the dollar is supported by debt". This is because the FRS has no basic hard asset and sells financial instruments like, Savings Bonds, Treasury Notes, and other such instruments that they then use to offset the value of the issued fiat money. This Ponzi scheme is called "Fractional Reserve Banking". Now some of you will question this as outrageous, and you are right. The supposed reserves at Fort Knox do not even cover 5% of the value of the issued currency. Others will say what happed to the funds that in 1913 were turned over to these goniffs?3 You asked a very sound question; for which I have no reply. These bankers have regulated the "Prime Rate" [the borrowing cost to their member banks] from 1% all the way up to 23% in the Carter administration. These fluctuations based on the amount that the FRS has to pay in interest to borrow the funds necessary to cover the increase of fiat money that they print, have caused financial panics, bankruptcies, foreclosures, all of which have benefited the same group. In biblical times or in the Islamic world this scheme is called usury and is and was punishable. Now one of the ways these bankers earn money is by encouraging the elected [congressmen & senators] to increase their spending so that they can loan more money to the government thus earning more interest. This process is responsible for inflation, which may well be called the "Hidden Tax". It is actually a double-whammy because it not only increases the price of goods and services but it also increases your taxes because they are computed at a percentage of income. Therefore when your income raises so do your taxes. The only people befitting from these Ponzi scheme are the bankers, everyone else looses. I also want to point out that the income tax started out at 1% in 1914 and only went to 2% if the taxpayer's income was over $20,000. In equivalency of today's inflated currency that is $ 650,000. For those of you old enough, you will remember that prior to the FDR presidency America issued gold and silver certificates as our currency. In other words the fiat money could be redeemed in any bank for hard asset. From that we degenerated into unconvertible fiat species that were issued by a Federal Reserve Bank of which there are twelve. FDR also confiscated privately held gold paying $32 per once or about 1/3 its value if you were stupid enough to turn it in. Nixon then de-monitorized [eliminated the provision of silver or gold redemption] the entire currency. The last step in the process was the change you will see on the seal of your money. The issuer is no longer a Federal Reserve Bank (which always contained the name and place of issuance) it was changed to the Federal Reserve System. Now some people will say so what? But this small change eliminates the possibility of having a local address of "who" issued the money, and in case of a financial panic is held harmless. The only reason for this is so that bankers can rip us off. Surely I want you to understand this is not the small local bank that is also at the mercy of the large financial institution. About 17% of your entire taxes go toward the cost of governmental borrowing. So if you compute about 20% of your taxes go toward the support of the bankers. This is called the national debt. There is no reason for the national debt, because cost overruns consist for the most part of pork-barrel-spending by congress in order to develop dependant constituents who will vote them back into office at the end of their term. This indicates clearly that one of the solutions to this problem is term limits. The Grace commission instituted by president Regan suggested over 480 changes, which would within ten years have saved billions. Not one was ever enacted. The principle problem in America is that we have an entrenched political "System" whose primary interests lie not with the nation, or its people but with the continuation of their elected position in office. This fortunately is not difficult to repair. If we eliminate all political perks, reduce their pay to twice the national average4 and eliminate their taxpayer-sponsored healthcare 5 career politicians will become as rare as hens teeth. The political climate in America has continuously deteriorated from the time of the War of Northern Aggression through the 21st century. The real concerted effort to place these bankers in complete control of the nation began before the Andrew Jackson administration, and rapidly expanded after 1913. The latest efforts in which they have shown much success is "Free Trade" a vehicle used by multi-national business to drive their competition (small and medium sized business) into bankruptcy. With free trade multi-nationals are free of the encumbrance of import duties thus allowing them to seek the lower labor cost and least regulated economies producing goods at lower costs and thus earning more profit. I must tell you that I am heartily in favor of profit, however not at the expense of the general public. There was a time when businesspeople exhibited some considerable community spirit; alas that time is long past, today's businessmen have one single driving philosophy ÐScrew them first before they screw youÑand Ðme, me, me. Ever since our public schools stopped having religious instruction, teaching of ethics and morals, comparative religion, and philosophy the situation has become worse. Today's HS graduates are unable to make rational decisions about right and wrong, every issue is tainted with a different shade of gray. When I was first exposed to business in the 50s' all agreements and contracts except for the sale of land or cars was made by handshake, with our litigious society I could no longer support this. It however gives us another clue as how to fix our nation, simply prohibit officers of the court (lawyers, judges) from holding legislative office. The reason is two fold; first they are already officers in the judicial branch and holding office in the legislative is a violation of the doctrine of "separation of powers" and second over half of our congressional officers are lawyers. People like Mr. Edwards have contributed to our skyrocketing healthcare costs and in general terms are responsible for an increase of approximately 12% of every good manufactured in the United States due to the cost of product liability insurance. While we are at it we should outlaw contingency fees, they are illegal in most of the world today.
A. H. Krieg is an author his latest book is Our Political Systems. Page URL: http://www.kriegbooks.com/taxes_fees_licenses.html Author hereby grants permission to e-mail this commentary, in its entirety and including the Web page URL, to those interested in receiving the information. Please e-mail for Adrian's PERMISSION in advance, to post, reprint, or reproduce this article for any other format of publication, electronic or otherwise. |