Did You Know?

• For the first 125 years of our nation’s history, Americans didn’t pay income taxes. That began in 1913 with the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. (For brief American Tax History, click here). The 16th Amendment authorized Congress to take 100% of our paycheck anytime it wants to and worse. Our Founding Fathers are truly “rolling over in their graves!”



• 150 million hard-working Americans pay for the government, while there are over 300 million people living here, and 50 million people visiting at any given time.



• Corporations don’t actually pay taxes. In order to compete in the marketplace, they pass the cost along to us. These taxes are called “embedded taxes.” So, in addition to income taxes, you are taxed 12-26% each time you buy something.



• Americans spend $200- $500 billion dollars and 5.8 billion hours each year to comply with 55,000 pages of tax code. The money is bad enough, but the hours equate to the lifespan of 8,700 Americans or a workforce of 2.77 million people each year—all to produce “nothing!



• 40% of our neighbors don’t comply with the tax code, so we pay a bigger share. It is estimated that we pay an extra $2,000 every year to cover missing revenue from people who don’t pay their share.



• It costs $10.6 billion dollars to run the IRS every year and 300,000 trees are cut down annually for tax forms. We know who pays for the IRS, right?



• America’s corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world, chasing American business onto foreign soil and keeping foreign companies from coming to here. Again, who really pays this corporate tax? We do. In many ways.