Comments about ‘The cost of tax freedom’

"The foundation figures 28.2 percent of the nation's income goes to the government."

Not nearly high enough for the socialists now in power.

We should definitely tax freedom day.

The tax code is overly complicated and unfair. (I paid over $3000 this year to have someone else do my taxes.) I'm an entrepreneur. I've worked for four years without pay, building a company. Sold the company last year, made a decent capital gain. In some other real estate investments I experienced some heavy losses that totally wiped out my gain. But because my gains were "active capital gains", and my losses were "passive", the IRS doesn't allow me to use them to offset the gains. Hence I pay an enormous tax bill, in a year that I feel I made absolutely nothing.

It seriously leaves me wondering "why try?"

This is why tax day and election day should be the same. Especially if you stop withholding money from paychekcs.

We all gripe about paying taxes, but taxes in the U.S. are among the lowest in the developed world.

Re: Roland Kayser. So some evil as long as it is less than your neighbor is ok?

If a man proposes to redistribute wealth, he means explicitly and necessarily that the wealth is his to distribute. If he proposes it in the name of the government, then the wealth belongs to the government; if in the name of society, then it belongs to society. No one, to my knowledge, did or could define a difference between that proposal and the basic principle of communism.

Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.

Talking of complicated calculations of income tax, some have yet to discover the joys of Utah's new calcualtions. Transfer this figure, add this, deduct that, multiply by .05, by .06, and also by .013. That's the "easy" form.

Even more wonderful is the new requirement in Utah that we write our own W2's, or rather transcribe the W2's we receive from our employers onto the State government's own form.

Advertised as "No need to file paper W2's!" it actually means that every W2 has to be accurately copied onto form TC40W by the taxpayer and attatched to the other State tax forms.

In our case fifteen W2's took us about three hours to carefully perform the state's work for it. The reason: they didn't like dealing with W2's of different sizes. So just dump it on the docile taxpayer.

@What's worse is... | 7:17 a.m.

If you dont like to pay the taxes of a capitalist entrepreneur, try getting a job.

I only can wish that I had to pay tens of thousands of tax dollars on my income.

Tax Freedom Day is a bogus, perverse concept. Whether it happens in January, February, June or July. I'm grateful to live in a civilized nation with police, courts, fire protection, parks, schools, sidewalks,highways, clean food and water and armies to defend my family. Those of you who want to be free of taxes should move to Somalia. No taxes there--just warlords plundering you.

the idiot. This guy and his tax dilema sounds all to familiar to those in our society who want to live the American dream. They risk all and work outrageous hours to try and succeed, all the while the beaurocrats in our govt. are finding ways to thwart the efforts of the commoner.
The deck is stacked against the entrepreneur; if he succeeds he fails through overtaxation, if he fails, he will get no help or sympathy from the govt. It is so true that they will not let you offset gains to losses. And then Ultra Bob comes along and says get a job? Please!

I suppose they had police, courts, parks, schools etc back in 1900,too, when tax freedom day fell on January 22nd.

The armies that 'defended' us by redirecting and wasting our productive manpower in Europe and Asia, were also costly in tens of thousands of our own young and middle-aged men, and made myriad widows and orphans. They did not "make the world safe for democracy", but did inflate our money and hugely increased our tax bills as a percentage of the fruits of our labors. The tide was never reversed as is so justly pointed out.

This is an excellent article, one I think I will keep and refer to often.

@Oh Please 11:08 a.m.

The services you list are nice, but their cost is a lot less than 28 percent of our income. Maybe that wasn't the whole list? What could you have left out?

You can always count on "Ultra Bright Bob" to have something ignorant to say. Ooooops, the other day he told me this wasn't my country. You're right BOB, it's moronic people like yourself that feel like you're in complete control. You'll never have the chance being a "Capitalist" you're too ignorant and dumb!!!

Ultra Bob - I think Hugo Chavez used almost the exact same words the other day to describe his feelings on Capitalism. Congratulations, you two have something in common. Or maybe he sent you here to educate us on the blessings of living under a fascist dictator. Either way, your comments and your lack of intellect are inexcuseable.

Fact is, this country and this economy live and breath off of guys like 7:17. I hope he becomes successful and makes millions. Any I hope Obama and his administration (and his loyal followers like Oh Please) don't find out about it because their innate jealousy of the rich will find a way to take it all.

The final comment of your editorial was "it (referring to taxes) limits freedom in real ways,' could just as well of said, 'it expands freedom in real ways,' but that sounds too liberal.

The Deseret News, and most conservatives, have a mindset that taxes are evil and are up to no good, but in reality, they all know that taxes are good and beneficial, and they act postively on that concept all the time.

The LDS Church is one of the greatest beneficiaries of taxation, as it pays none and enjoys all the benefits.

No talk about reduction in taxes should begin without first lopping off 25% out of the military budget.

Just change our tax laws to limit deductions to three children and impose a further tax on children above three to make prolific breeders pay their fair share for educating all above three.

@ easy solution - why don't you look at Europe where they barely have a "next generation" to pay the bills.Yours is the most short-sighted, myopic post I have ever seen. Do you understand how much it costs to raise the next generation of Citizens (taxpayers)? Who is going to pay your Social Security and Medicare? The non-existent child that you didn't have or one of the kids who has 3 or 4 brothers and sisters? I guess you hate humanity and don't want people to inhabit the Earth.

The TC-40W is especially aggravating to me as a taxpayer. The Utah tax commission has all the data on their computers and the standard W-2's, which are have been used for years, are more than adequate. Now they force the taxpayer to hand copy all the W-2 data onto their special form, the TC-40W, and to make their work easier. The TC-40W is especially difficult to read because of the light green printing and it takes a lot of concentration to put the data in the right box. A BIG thumbs down to the tax commission for this one, particularly the attempt to sell it to the taxpayer as "no need to mail paper W-2's" like that is going to make it easier for us. Come on, we're not that dumb are we?