Good week article 4001

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Various states have various levels of sales tax. Where I live it's 6%, but it doesn't apply to certain things (like groceries). There's a higher tax on gas, cigarettes, alcohol, and other things of that nature that vary from state to state as well. A lot of people from Chicago drive into Indiana (about 45 minutes) to stock up on cigarettes, because Chicago has a city, a county, and a state tax on a pack of cigarettes, while Indiana only has a state tax.

We have that here, too. Payroll taxes are a pain in the butt - that's the bulk of what I do at work.

We get this in the form of workers' compensation insurance, I think, which each company is required to carry (along with other sorts of insurance).

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People are automatically awarded a certain amount if they're injured while at work (usually continued pay even though they can't work, plus medical costs, plus a flat amount based on some random thing if they lose function - I know a guy who got $800 for partial loss of use of his index finger). People sue when they don't think it's enough. They also sue if they fall (or something) at a place that is not their employer - if I fell at the grocery store, and the grocery store's liability insurance company refused to pay for my expenses (and if I could prove that they were at fault, by storing the bananas on the floor or something), I could take them to court to force them to help pay my medical expenses, because it's their fault I got hurt. Unfortunately, juries in this country tend to see "companies" as deep pockets and most "victims" as victims, which is why you see ridiculous awards - like $3.5 million the woman got for coffee burns at McDonald's (this was later overturned).

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Your population is about four million, too, which is vastly different from our nearly 300 million (last time I checked). It becomes more difficult to administer such services when you have so many more people, and so much more space. What kind of military does New Zealand have? For better or for worse, the bulk of what we pay in taxes is going to fund various military actions, and will for the forseeable future. We have hundreds of thousands of miles of highways. I've seen Lord of the Rings - I didn't see a whole lot of highway (or even places where it was possible to CGI out a highway!) in that. :)

We pay a lot of different taxes here. I pay property tax yearly on the house I own, and it's pretty high because we live in a nice city with really good schools. We pay excise tax (in the form of license plates) on our cars. This used to be a lot higher, but my state insbreastuted a lottery, and used some of the proceeds to help pay it off. We pay Federal withholding (income tax), state withholding, medicare, social security, etc. through our paychecks, and our employers match some of those contributions (so if you pay $10 out of your paycheck for social security, your employer also pays $10). The level of tax you pay is dependent upon your income. We pay sales tax on most items that we buy (except groceries). Also, the aforementioned "sin" taxes (cigarettes, alcohol), and gas taxes. There are certain extra taxes if you import certain things from certain countries. In addition, the company pays inventory tax (to the state) every spring (which means that you can get a good deal if you buy a car, because the car dealer doesn't want to pay inventory tax). I can't think of any others at this time, but I'm sure there are more. I'd really like to see the US go to a flat tax, or a national sales tax, instead of an income tax. I think it would be a lot cheaper (and I wouldn't have to deal with it because we don't sell anything! Ha!) but it'll never happen. That's another thread, anyway.

If you ever have insomnia and want to bore yourself to rest, you can read our IRS's website at www.irs.gov - they're the ones who make and enforce the rules about income taxes in this country. It's clear from their literature that they do a lot of what they do in order to keep themselves employed - if they write publications so no one can understand them, that's 100 more jobs - people answering questions over the phone, etc. :)

Amy