
Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt. - tomeast
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/09/30/130249425/thanks-for-paying-taxes-here-s-your-receipt?ft=1&f=93559255
======
DanielBMarkham
The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan supported sending people statements
of what was in their social security. His idea was that if people never saw
what was in there, they'd never miss it when it was gone.

I think this is a logical extension of that idea, and its great. I'd also like
to see the flip side of the receipt contain a guess for how the same tax
amount would break down the following year based on current budget trends.
That way you could see how the coming year is different from the current year.
Complaining about NASA funding is one thing -- seeing that they only get 20
bucks while Social Security gets over a thousand? Puts the situation in much
sharper contrast.

It's strange that the government works in such an arcane fashion. A simple
thing like a receipt for your taxes is probably very hard or impossible to
accomplish. It took many years for Moynihan to get his SS statements. I have
doubts that this would ever fly.

But it is certainly a simple and profound idea.

~~~
ataggart
>His idea was that if people never saw what was in there...

The problem of course is there's no "there" there. Any funds collected today
by payroll taxes, and not used for today's benefits, are lent to the general
fund and spent. There are no funds being saved for next year's benefits, much
less the current tax payers.

Now, it is true that the Social Security system then holds "assets" in
exchange for that cash, namely, government bonds. But this is just accounting
fiction.

Imagine you are a new parent and wish to save for your child's college
tuition. Here are some scenarios:

A) Every pay day you put some money in a jar. When your child goes to college
you take the money out of the jar to pay the tuition.

B) Every pay day you spend every dime. When your child is ready to go to
college, you scramble to find the funds to pay the tuition.

C) Every pay day you put some money in a jar, then you replace the money in
the jar with an IOU, and spend the money. When your child is ready to go to
college, you scramble to find the funds to pay the IOUs to pay the tuition.

There is no substantive difference between B and C.

~~~
Ratufa
Your scenarios, while technically accurate, leave something out. Here's
another version:

D) Your child spends his/her high-school years mowing lawns, doing part-time
jobs, etc, in order to save some money to help pay their way through college.
You encourage them to do so. The money earned is put in a jar. You take that
money, replace it with an IOU, and use it to pay for household expenses along
with more frivolous things. Now it's college time and you scramble to find the
money to pay the IOUs.

~~~
ataggart
True, but there's an easy solution: take out a loan in your yet-to-be-born
grandkids' name.

~~~
encoderer
...after all, they benefit by their mother/father having a college
education......

~~~
jimmyk
I suppose you have no problem with the underlying assumption in this scheme,
which is that adults should be treated like children.

------
hugh3
Not a bad idea. But why does it say "selected items"?

I haven't added the numbers up myself, but one of the comments says that the
listed things add up to only sixty-something percent of the total. Where's the
other money gone? One might almost think they're trying to make a political
point with their careful selection of items (eg. "Combat operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan" somehow got to fifth place on the list while "bailouts" and
"stimulus" are entirely missing despite this being 2009).

Anyway, I certainly wouldn't trust the government to give me a receipt which
said "selected items" -- deceptive information is worse than no information.

Also, since the US federal expenditure is currently about 25% larger than tax
receipts, how is this taken into account?

~~~
Aetius
This is, after all, NPR...no surprise the war was prominent as they have a
decidedly progressive news team. I won't call NPR liberal, but certainly left
of center, and very critical (as they should be) of the wars.

~~~
kscaldef
I think the bias in the table actually goes the other way. By breaking down,
and omitting parts of, military spending, they make it look relatively minor
compared to SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. They have also chosen to display SS
intakes, not outflows, which is a $400B difference.

~~~
hugh3
If you look at the pdf from the think tank which came up with it, you'll see
that one of their arguments for doing it this way is that "An educated
taxpayer is a progressive's best customer", leaving no doubt what their
political agenda is.

Somewhat disingenuous from a think tank called the "Third Way", which was
originally intended to imply centrism. Still, it's a general law of NPR
reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-
wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank".

~~~
Poiesis
_Still, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is
called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing
think tank"._

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but a quick search suggests you may
be mistaken. [site:npr.org "right-wing think tank"] os 8 results;
[site:npr.org "think tank"] has about 2380. Nothing funny in robots.txt.

But you never know, maybe there aren't that many transcripts on there or
something...

~~~
hugh3
Or perhaps they rarely quote right-wing think tanks?

Still, a bit more googling:

7 hits for "right-wing think tank" vs 4 hits for "left-wing think tank", so
apparently they don't use either term very often.

1200 hits for "liberal think tank" vs 285 for "conservative think tank" vs 447
for "libertarian think tank" (all of which seem to be Cato) vs 6 for "moderate
think tank".

3 for "Republican think tank", 345 for "Democratic think tank" and 57 for
"non-partisan think tank"

I take your point, though. What you'd really need to do in order to analyze
bias would be to check out "think tank" is used without an adjective and
figure out what kind of think tanks those are.

~~~
yv
These numbers of grossly inaccurate. Go to the last results page of each query
to see the real hit count.

------
jasonkester
Screw receipts. What I want is a bill.

The IRS seems plenty good at figuring out how much I should have paid in taxes
and hounding me about it. Why not do those calculations in February and send
me a bill:

"We calculated that you owe $14,278 in taxes this year. Please submit payment
along with the stub below. Alternately, you may choose to submit a tax return
for our review."

Government gets their money. I save a bit of hassle in April. Sorted.

I mean sure, they'd end up overcharging you by a few percent, but really that
amounts to <$1,000. My time is worth a lot more to me than that. Send me a
bill telling me what I owe and I'll pay it.

~~~
TGJ
I don't think your idea would ever work. I think the way the tax system gets
by everyday with all the corruption and waste associated with it is by the
simple premise "Out of sight, out of mind". Taxes are paid by the average Joe
a little at a time, I think most Joe's would simply freak out if they received
a total sum bill at the end of the year. Actually, your idea would work in a
perfect system, but we know how rare those are.

~~~
jasonkester
I imagine they'd keep track of your withholding, so the "bill" would be for
the difference between what you'd paid already and what you owe. Just like
your current tax return.

In the case of a refund, it might even take the form of a check that, if
cashed signifies your intention not to file a return.

~~~
TGJ
When you put it like that, I'd sign up.

------
ck2
There's something bogus about those war numbers, it's far too low.

The US has a $700 Billion ANNUAL military budget (more than every other
country combined).

Something is being hidden in other numbers because of all the cost to support
military and their families (taxpayer paid "free" housing?) and thousands of
military are coming back with traumatic injuries that previously would have
been a one-time funeral cost but now are surviving with extremely expensive,
continuous medical support and therapy costs (and disability pay for
them/family).

Where is the "homeland security" portion in that receipt? Are we to believe
the billions in security theater at airports is free and not funded by taxes?
What about the billions doled out to local governments under the guise of
"homeland security" so law enforcement can buy new toys to abuse?

Where are the secret military projects budget in that receipt (like their own
space shuttle, military satellites and other stuff we aren't supposed to know
about so their budgets are hidden?)

------
wuputah
I do like the idea, but a cursory look at their 'receipt' and where the
numbers come from showed a pretty large flaw: half of social security and
medicare is paid for by employers. Unless you consider your salary to be an
extra 8.65% than it really is, you're not accounting for all the taxes the
government receives based on your paycheck. Although this is really a "hidden
tax" on your paycheck, most people don't think of it as part of their salary
(which is why they do it this way).

There's also other types of taxes paid by non-individuals, like corporate
taxes, estate taxes, and the like.

In any case, it means the numbers in their receipt for SS and Medicare are off
by a factor of 2, so you should evaluate this only based on the idea, not on
their actual numbers. (Not to mention there are likely an abundance of other
problems with this method, like spending that is not part of the budget, or
when the government is over-budget and issues bonds to pay for it.)

------
aresant
Nice viral night's project would be building a simple yourtaxreceipt.com
website, reverse engineering those numbers and making a calculator.

~~~
dkasper
Your wish is my command: <http://www.incometaxreceipt.com>

~~~
taxreceipt
I built one too. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745574>

~~~
gnaritas
Where is it?

~~~
volare
It is <http://www.yourtaxreceipt.org>

------
zach
From the report:

 _"At best, motivated taxpayers can locate a pie chart on a government website
that gives percentage allocations about how large categories of spending are
distributed.

But these are difficult to find and difficult to understand."_

This is disingenuous puffery. It's in every copy of the 1040 instructions and
is simple to understand.

They're actually suggesting a far more complex and entirely non-visual
spending report. That's useful, but the existing report is neither hard to
find nor understand.

------
ihodes
Original paper (not blogspam, if you feel okay calling some of NPR that):
[http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_...](http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-
_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf)

This is a brilliant idea, and in the spirit of a democratic republic, I'd say.
I'm paying taxes; it'd be nice to know what exactly I'm paying for.

I'm also for listing all the expenses; down to the ones that end up costing
you a millicent.

Perhaps yet more feasible would be setting up a real tax website, with real
information, and accessible tax records for all. On this website you could
also find your receipt. If only…

~~~
city41
But it's not the entire story. Just because X dollars was spent on the
military for example, how much of that X was actually put to good use? As a
former employee of a military contractor, I can attest there are entire
companies built around taking advantage of how inefficiently the government
spends its money.

------
mkn
There's a lot of naive love here for a deeply flawed idea.

First, what is suggested in this article is not a receipt, but a breakdown. A
sales receipt for a car, for example, doesn't start out, "5 tires (4 on
vehicle, 1 spare), 2 axles..." It just doesn't work that way. You buy
"government" with your taxes.

Even if you did get an itemized receipt for a car, _that_ would be far easier
than what's proposed here. You can always just point to the car and account
for the parts. The part is either there or not, and meets specifications or
not. The reason that government and spending are these intractable issues is
that the parts can be arguably there or not, and arguably working or not.

As long as you can't opt out of all or a portion of your taxes, in other
words, as long as tax policy is sane, the only "receipt" you should get should
specify that you paid the amount you calculated. Any other discussion or
education about costs and allotment should happen in a forum that at least has
a chance of shedding some real light.

Finally, if the receipt ever became the focus of public attention, politicians
will just monkey with the categories until you're happy again. It will cease
to be an information tool and become an influence tool. It will merely add
another layer of intractability to an already byzantine bureaucratic system.

------
julian37
I wonder if these numbers are made up or have any basis in reality.

One item that caught my eye was spending on the DEA of only $3.14: Wikipedia
puts yearly spending on law enforcement related to the War On Drugs at about
$44 billion [1] and gross federal tax revenue for 2009 at about $2.1 trillion
[2]. This works out to roughly 2% of tax revenue spent on the War On Drugs.
For the $5,400 of federal income tax in the linked example that would work out
to more like $100 rather than $3, no?

Of course, the Wikipedia article doesn't state how much of the $44 billion
goes to the DEA and how much goes to other law enforcement agencies.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs#Costs_to_taxpayers>

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Ma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Major_receipt_categories)

~~~
mediaman
DEA's budget is much smaller than total spending on the "War On Drugs" (not
sure how that number is calculated; spending against illegal drug
manufacturing, distribution and consumption happens at many levels of law
enforcement).

Their 2009 appropriations were $2.6bn.

<http://www.justice.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm>

~~~
julian37
Makes sense, but assuming that the $44bn figure in the Wikipedia article is
correct I'm still wondering where the remaining ~$97 dollars are hidden. In
"Military Personnel" and "Health Care Research"? I guess it goes to show that
even with a fairly detailed list of expense positions, you still don't really
know where your tax dollars go.

~~~
_djo_
I am open to correction, but as I understand it the $44 billion figure is a
calculated estimate of the money being spent in total by any and all
government institutions in the US, including that spent by local and state
police departments and prison services to investigate, catch and incarcerate
narcotics suppliers and users.

Considering the nature of the War on Drugs I'd expect most of the expenditure
to be at the local and state level, but the biggest chunks at the federal
level aside from the DEA's budget would probably be the proportion of Coast
Guard and CBP time and resources dedicated to counter-drug operations and the
military and policing aid given to countries like Mexico and Colombia. This is
a bit hard to quantify though, as the Coast Guard and CBP usually conduct
counter-drug operations as part of their usual duties and not all the aid
being sent to Colombia and Mexico is motivated solely by the desire to contain
drug production and shipment.

So you would not necessarily find the remaining funding hidden within the
federal budget.

------
stuaxo
Things should be grouped e.g. all military stuff with a subtotal in there.

------
hansef
Totally offtopic, but m company did the site for Third Way earlier this year
and I love the S3 CNAME'ing I added at the last minute before launch:
[http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_...](http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-
_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf)

Always fun to see a project you were involved surface on NPR. ;)

------
JeffJenkins
I've always liked the idea of a receipt to be given to Canadians at the end of
every year telling them what healthcare benefits they got and how much they
cost.

It seemed like it would make people grateful that they had that service, but
it also might make the people who pay disproportionately more than they use
angry (and the nature of insurance is that most people put in more than they
get)

~~~
mattm
If you are under 60, chances are you are paying disproportionately more in
healthcare than you are getting. But this is how it goes. A large percentage
of your lifetime's healthcare spending occurs in the last 6-12 months of your
life.

Given the choice, I would much rather pay more for healthcare than I am using.
It means I am healthy. My health is more valuable than money.

------
japherwocky
Take it one step further and let people specify what their money goes to.
Automate the politicians!

~~~
hugh3
It seems like a nice idea on the face of it, but apart from the inevitable
chaos which comes from having budgets of government departments fluctuate
wildly from year to year, I think it would lead to a world where government
departments spend about half their time and money begging taxpayers for money.

Every television ad for the first four months of the year would probably be
some variation on:

 _"Remember, the FBI does good work! Be sure to remember to contribute to the
FBI on your next tax return!"_

~~~
1053r
Honestly, the receipts for MOST businesses are fairly predictable (within
10-20%, at least), so why would we think that the government would be any
different?

Also, I'm not sure why making government departments beg for money and have to
live in the free market is on the face of it a bad thing. Would it be any
different than the current system, where politicians beg us for money while
promising to allocate our taxes a particular way, but then usually fail to
follow through completely on? Having the departments beg for money directly
seems more efficient somehow.

Of course, I think what would really suffer is bold new infrastructure
programs. People would be willing to allocate money to roads once a couple
high profile bridges collapse, but would we ever see a space elevator?

~~~
SapphireSun
Would be nice, but what happens when you contribute to a government program?
Nothing. Your money is far too small to have any effect and you will likely
receive a particular service whether you personally contribute or not. With a
business, you get what you pay for. Fast.

------
JohnAllen
The denominator should be tax receipts, not federal spending. Foreign
countries and our Federal Reserve actually made large contributions this past
year (both do every year we have a budget deficit and every year the money
supply increase- this is most every year for the past few decades). This is
not to suggest that Americans won't eventually pay for all of this year's
expenditures, we eventually will. In the case of the Fed, consider their new
money printing and subsequent spending to be a tax of everyone that holds
dollars at the time of the printing/spending.

------
arethuza
I would dearly love the UK government to send me a statement every year
explaining what it has done with my taxes and detailing my share of the
liabilities it has been running up on my behalf.

In fact, I want it online and I want to be able to drill down as far as I want
into the data.

Of course, my desire for such a thing is balanced by the fact that such a
project if carried out in the same way as most public sector IT projects would
probably cost a hundred billion and not actually work.

------
kqr2
Here's another nice visualization of US government spending:

<http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/>

~~~
illumin8
This is amazing. I find it incredible that only .100 billion is going towards
"Financial Crimes and Enforcement" given the huge amount of fraud and outright
criminal activity that has occurred in our banking sector. This is actually
down 10% from last year.

Regardless of your political views, left or right, this shows you what the
priorities of our government are.

After the S&L crisis in the 80s, over 1000 banksters and fraudsters were
convicted and imprisoned. Why is it that none have been convicted and
imprisoned now?

~~~
yummyfajitas
While I'd love to see all the home borrowers who lied on their loan
applications jailed, it just isn't going to happen. They are "victims" who
need a bailout.

Besides, it's probably also not that useful to do. From now on, you can expect
banks to do a little more verification, so creating disincentives for mortgage
application fraud is not that pressing an issue.

------
uptown
My unrealistic idea for changing how taxes work is allowing me to designate
which programs my cash goes towards. Make it kinda like the old Wheel of
Fortune ... where you've got $x to spend on stuff that's priced 5 times what
it's supposed to cost. If I want to buy 0.003% of that winter's salt supply
for the road, or 0.00001% of a Predator drone ... at least I'd know where my
taxes supposedly went.

------
untamedmedley
The way some of the line items are written/described is very misleading.

Setting aside money for "Low Income K-12 students" or Foreign Aid or Amtrak
(with prices as high as flying and quadruple the travel time) does not
necessarily mean that investment is getting results.

I'd only trust a receipt like this if it were annotated with hard numbers on
how my dollars turn into meaningful progress.

------
jsz0
I always thought it would be a good idea to let people decide how part of
their tax dollars were going to be spent. Set aside maybe 20-30% and let them
choose which programs to give extra funding to. I imagine most of it would end
up in education and social programs.

~~~
kitt
And this is what I was about to post, but instead of 20-30%, make it 51%.
Allow taxpayers to decide where (the broad categories the receipt listed are a
perfect starting point) their tax dollars are going. The remaining 49% can be
discretionary, let the government decide where that goes: fill in the gaps for
items needed, but that no one wants to pay for.

Such a policy would give people a sense of power over the money they're
paying. I, for one, would begrudge less the paying of taxes if the monies went
to programs important to me.

~~~
zumda
But then the rich would have a lot more power over the budget then the poor.

~~~
kitt
1\. That's pretty much already the case (lobbyists are paid by someone, and
that someone isn't the poor).

2\. You make that sound like a bad thing, when it's not.

Given the categories listed on the receipt, which one of those would you
really be upset if a rich person decided to put 51% of his taxes to? Medicaid?
Pell Grants? How about the National Parks?

"If the wars are important to you, use your money to pay for it, stop using
mine," is pretty much my philosophy. Having no control over where my taxes go
makes me significantly less pleased with paying them.

------
emit_time_n3rgy
Here's a breakdown of how much of one dollar goes to what
<http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2010>

26.5 cents/military, 20.1c/health, 13.6c/debt, 3.5c/vets, 2c/edu

------
olegkikin
Taxpayers should be able to choose where their taxes go. Like when you file
your tax return, check some boxes. If you like paying for renewable energy,
great. If you like funding the war, your choice.

------
aguynamedben
Interest on the National Debt: $287.03 Principle on the National Debt: ???

------
joezydeco
Funny, my local county government lists where all the taxes go. It's amusing
(or enraging, I guess) to see we still pay for a Tuberculosis sanitarium.

~~~
brettmjohnson
Why does this surprise you? Since deficit spending is generally disallowed for
state and local governments, nearly all sizable projects are funded through
bonds. Bonds are basically loans with a promise to pay back in the future,
generally with tax revenues. So you are paying off that 99 year bond to build
a TB sanatorium built in the 1930s.

We are doing the same thing today. My grandchildren will be paying for the
school repair and high-speed rail bonds that passed a couple of years ago here
in California. Their grandchildren will be paying off the anti-global-warming
school air conditioning and hyper mag-lev rail bonds that will be put forth 25
years from now.

~~~
joezydeco
Didn't think about the bond angle. Thanks!

------
grandalf
I've been suggesting this idea for a few years.

A few issues: It should also indicate how much money was actually spent on
said item (in the event of deficit spending).

------
d_c
No secret services?

------
mmaunder
If an administration ran with this as their only platform, they would probably
get my vote. It's brilliant.

------
monos
in austria everyone pays ~7% into the public health fund. by law the
insurrance is bound to send you a letter listing the benefits you recieved
(per quarter i think).

sometimes mind boggeling number - e.g., several thousand euro for a short
hospital stay - sometimes zero.

------
xsive
I don't see the point. If you want a "receipt", read a Budget overview
article.

------
eof
Missing like 2.2k

------
sportsTAKES
Love this idea -

Would also like to see:

Return policy - don't like how much the government spent on Amtrak, get a
refund (no questions asked).

Customer loyalty program - earn points towards postage stamps or a national
park pass.

Discounts from partner programs - i.e., paying, loyal customers of the US
government get discounts with China, GM, Goldman Sachs and other US
'partners'.

~~~
jonursenbach
If there's a return policy then most people are going to be asking for a
return on _everything_.

~~~
zacharycohn
The counter to that would be that you can only ask for one return per year.

The counter to THAT is that people would just ask for the largest amount to be
returned to them (Take that, Social Security!)

~~~
anthonyb
Except that if you've already gotten your money back, you haven't actually
bought it. No security for you if you lose your job!

