Already High, Taxes About to Go Higher
Statement
Already High, Taxes About to Go Higher
This year, the federal government is on track to spend more than a trillion taxpayer dollars. If you just mailed in your taxes, you know exactly who is footing the bill. Without action by Congress, matters are only going to get worse.
So just how much of your hard-earned money is the IRS taking? For the average American taxpayer, every dollar earned this year between January 1 and April 22 will go toward paying federal, state, and local taxes. That's a total of 113 days spent working for the government. Almost every dime you have earned so far this year is going to Uncle Sam.
I have cosponsored the Tax Increase Prevention Act to prevent the tax relief approved by Congress in recent years from expiring at midnight on December 31, 2010. Unless Congress acts, Americans will experience a $683 billion tax increase, the largest in American history. The average Californian would see their taxes go up by $3,331 per year. That is simply unacceptable.
Not only are taxes going up, but the complexity of the tax code is also increasing with each passing year. Back in 1935, when the IRS first started using Form 1040, the form most Americans use to calculate their federal income taxes, it came with a two page instruction booklet. By 2006, that same booklet had grown to 143 pages in length.
In fact, the IRS estimates that the average American will spend over 13 hours just calculating their taxes. No wonder when total IRS regulations now run to more than 6.9 million words. In case you're wondering, that's nine times the length of the King James Bible.
The simple fact is that our taxes are too high and our tax code is in desperate need of repair. That is precisely why I have cosponsored the Fair Tax Act which would overhaul our nation's tax code by abolishing all federal income taxes, death taxes, capital gains taxes, and payroll taxes, and replacing them with a national sales tax.
At a time when the American economy is slowing down and the cost of living is increasing, taxpayers need to be allowed to keep more of their hard-earned money. The people of Southern California, who are already overtaxed, deserve no less.
GARY G. MILLER
Member of Congress
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