Maryland Woman Has Kept Track of Every Tax on Her In 2012 — and You’re Not Going to Believe How Much She’s Paid So Far
Does Maryland resident Alice Scanlon pay more taxes than you? Maybe not. But Scanlon certainly keeps track of her taxes better than you. Much better. Down to the penny better.
“I was listening to our president about a year ago and I kept hearing him say ‘pay your fair share,” Scanlon told TheBlaze recently. “It got me thinking, what is our fair share?” So she turned to her records, and an excel spreadsheet.
“I just started looking through all of our receipts and tax filings from the past year and made columns for each,” she explained. The middle class Dundalk, MD, resident notes that she had to expand her list a number of times due to the hidden taxes she kept discovering. The average entry features a relatively small amount, sometimes only pennies, but it is all there. Gas taxes, state and federal taxes, special Maryland alcohol tax, cell phone taxes and “Bay Restoration Fees,” road tolls, mandatory union dues, and on and on. A typical entry from the list will look like this:
Scanlon’s list grew and grew — and it’s growing and growing. It is now 18 columns wide.
“There is a much bigger picture than most taxpayers know,” she insisted. ”Once you add them up it is sickening how much you are really paying and the levels of bureaucracy is borderline dysfunctional.” When asked which tax she found the most egregious there was no hesitation: “Oh, the phone bill, hands down.” Her spreadhsheet includes a footnote highlighting the litany of taxes and fees associated with it:
“Telephone fees include: MD 911 fee, Federal Excise Tax, MD local tax, Federal Universal Service fee, MD Gross Receipts Tax surcharge, Telecommunications Access of MD fee, Federal Subscriber line charge, Md State sales tax, PEG Grant fee, Regulatory Recovery Fee – Federal, Video Franchise Fee"
So how much has this working class family paid to the government to date? A whopping $26,000. Well, actually the total looks more like this:
$26,106.93
“This is 27 percent of mine and my husbands combined income,” Scanlon said with minor irritation, “and the total taxes paid in 2012 will easily tip over $30,000 by the end of the fiscal year.”
More: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/maryland-woman-has-kept-track-of-ev...
Lawrence Edward Calcutt
Hollywood and Troy, Will and Nathan and James, Susie and Hugh Mann (great poet) has said it all, I can't think of a better set of brilliant 12160ers.
The lady would be able to see the elephant in the room if she painted it right.
And not use the wallpaper.
What more is there to be said. Thanks to the 12160 team.
Nov 2, 2012
Skekzyz
http://cafr1.com/
Nov 3, 2012
Genevieve Fosa
What we pay to the IRS is essentially tribute to England, so I have read. Look at it this way - every dollar we use to pay for everything we buy is a tax. We have them only on loan and, according to the rules, we have to pay them back at interest. That is what the US debt consists of. Even if we gave all the dollars in circulation back to the FED, there is no way they would begin to pay this debt. It is time we instituted our own means of trade that is not tied to the value of the dollar. I suppose to do that, we would have to secede from the United States.
Nov 13, 2012