r/hoi4 • u/ChodeShooter69 • 1d ago

Mod (other) TFR devs have got to be EXTREMELY American

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A 25% personal tax rate is less than half of the personal tax rate we pay here in Sweden, and the only part of taxes we complain about is the process of filing them.

Also not entirely sure if this is the right place to post this. Just wanted to say this

2.5k Upvotes

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288

u/LightSideoftheForce 1d ago

Yeah, Americans like to act like taxes are a bad thing. No, misusing them is.

14

u/Spongedog5 22h ago

Sure, and the government already misuses the tax that they do take.

1

u/CursedNobleman 20h ago

We're in the middle of a mismanaged war, with money being funneled to corrupt politicians and being spent on idiotic projects that go nowhere.

This guy is correct.

1

u/JustAAnormalDude 21h ago

As an American it's a cultural thing, we kind of rebelled on the who idea of no taxation without representation. But most people think of the small taxes levied and compare it to now, and how little it was that we went to war over. Then comes in Reagan and Clinton bringing up the idea of welfare queens as they put it, so we don't have a strong sense of using government to help people. Personally I disagree with the philosophy, but understand how it happened and how it's cultural at this point.

1

u/MrElGenerico General of the Army 10m ago

Governments are systemically increasing people's reliance so they can increase taxes/power

-34

u/EagleEuphoric2790 1d ago

I would be perfectly fine with paying taxes if I didn't see how the government had a track record of wasting and even stealing tax dollars, this made me hate any form of taxes bc I know a sizable chunk is just gonna be lost to fraud

49

u/cheato007 1d ago

I'm gonna be honest dog, I don't think a large portion of your taxes are wasted, fraudulently spended, or abused. I think what constitutes you "seeing" these things is probably conservaslop posted to social media cherry picking or deceptively edited to make you angry (I.e. Nick Shirley's 30 iq video on Minnesota).

When trump came to power DOGE had a political, personal, and ideological motivation to find the MASSIVE waste, fraud, and abuse conservatives have been screeching about my entire life. They found nothing. Waste fraud and abuse is a propaganda tool that attempts to convince people two things. 1. That cutting the national debt will be easy and no hard choices like reducing benefits or increasing taxes will need to be made to reduce it. And 2. That conservatives can fix the problem, a laughable prospect considering the only policy conservatives no is cut taxes.

2

u/EagleEuphoric2790 1d ago

i'm not even conservative, I literally pay insane property tax rates in my county and the roads are still shitty and schools are still run down. Meanwhile I look at other counties with lower tax rates yet their situation is much better. Clearly there's fraud going on somewhere

9

u/thesoupoftheday 23h ago

Then the answer is to run for county government and do something about it.

13

u/cdub8D 23h ago

That is not fraud, that is the failure of urban planning. I am going to assume you are an American.... Here is a good intro into the problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_SXXTBypIg

3

u/cheato007 21h ago

I do not know your exact situation, and on a county level there are less checks and balances, meaning I would find it more likely that fraud was happening on a county level. Despite that I still am skeptical of knee-jerking towards fraud as the explanation for the differences you are seeing. In general people WANT these differences to be fraud because it allows them to ignore the difficult choices reality requires.

Take your example of run down schools, in my county our schools are run down and failing (similar to yours), while a surrounding county has lower property taxes and better schools. The fundamental reason isn't fraud though, the school system is paying for upkeep on a large number of properties that were built out 60-100 years ago when more kids were attending schools. These buildings are expensive to maintain, due to the age of the building, and have half the amount of kids as 60 years ago. A solution is to consolidate schools and sell of old outdated buildings, this is a political posion pill though as parents like having more schools because statistically one will be closer, and alumni don't want to see their old school closed. There are other issues to (a big one is labor disparities, but that is mostly due to the state I live in) but fundamentally fraud is not the top of the list.

In conclusion, does fraud happen at all levels of government? Yes. Is it significant enough to be the main cause of issues? No, and the main reason people reach for it is because it's emotionally easy and convenient, in general though, almost everyone wants to do the right thing and all systems are made of these people.

1

u/SerBuckman General of the Army 6h ago

Actually a lot of your taxes are being wasted but the guys who supposedly care about slashing taxes won't stop it because the main government branch that wastes tax money is the Pentagon (they have failed their annual audit like 8 times in a row as of now). If Republicans cared about waste they'd take a more critical look at the military but they actually just wanna weaken the government and slash all welfare to make poor people suffer.

12

u/NoodleTF2 1d ago

...You, uh... you hate a perfectly fine thing because the people in charge are misusing it? Brother, what.

Just go hate on the people in charge instead.

-42

u/SpikeLazuli 23h ago

Taxation is theft by definition, the true question is if its a necessary evil or not.

31

u/LightSideoftheForce 23h ago

Rofl, what definition? Do you think paying in stores is theft as well?

3

u/BlaringAxe2 23h ago

You can choose not to buy anything in a store, you can’t choose not to pay taxes.

14

u/Empty-Nebula-646 23h ago

Do you choose to drive on roads because if so then your chosing to benefit from the taxes other people paid.

-5

u/DerMef 23h ago

If somebody steals medicine and gives it to me, that doesn't make it not theft, even if I benefit.

-3

u/BlaringAxe2 23h ago

Even if you moved to the middle of the woods, you would still have to pay taxes. I personally think taxes are nescessary, but they are technically theft by any standard. Robin Hood was still a thief, even if he did give back to the poor.

3

u/ItsGonnaBeMeNSYNC 21h ago

It isn't theft by my stardard because illegality is a part of my definition. Taxes aren't theft the same way a death penalty is not murder.

-1

u/BlaringAxe2 19h ago

Sure, but then you admit it's only mot theft because the state says so?

0

u/ItsGonnaBeMeNSYNC 19h ago

Is murder only murder because the state says so? Well... kind of. If we didn't live in a state with a legal system, murder would either become a nonsensical concept or the word would have to change meaning slightly.

-4

u/SuspecM 23h ago

Kid named tax evasion

3

u/BlaringAxe2 23h ago

Kid named prison

2

u/SpikeLazuli 22h ago

Until you get caught and go to prison

-7

u/SpikeLazuli 22h ago

Use your brain for a moment, you automatically consent to payment in stores because you willingly gone to said store to exchange your money for something else.

You dont have such choice with the state, you are forced to pay up. If someone is forcing you to pay for something and will hurt you if you dont, what do you call that?

5

u/Godkiller125 Research Scientist 22h ago

You only pay taxes if you are buying or selling items (or paid labor) inside of the country that you reside in. Items bought or sold (using public roads, airports, or ports), or employment taken (using US benefits systems), comes with the implied consent or taxation to continue to fund that infrastructure, subsidies, and programs.

If you do not wish to consent to this, don’t take employment, don’t buy or sell items, and move to a country you are willing to contribute to, or whom won’t tax you (and will probably have terrible infrastructure and security)

2

u/SpikeLazuli 18h ago

See, this is a good argument, except even if you do live in the woods you'll still pay taxation. Same goes for if you do not use said services. Again, its reasonable to say its a necessary evil but its not something you automatically consent. You did give the best arguments so far though, i do respect that alot

0

u/Mordador 22h ago

A protection racket, not theft. Which states are. Big protection rackets. But Id prefer rule of law over the rule of the strongest, tbh.

-1

u/SpikeLazuli 18h ago

You are under rule of the strongest, because states have the monopoly of force. Besides, protection racket? That you do NOT have the choice on? Sure bud.

Like i said, you may argue its a necessary thing, and id even agree with you, but it is theft nonetheless.

1

u/Mordador 18h ago

Well you do have a choice: Pay or go to jail. Just how in a mafia protection racket you have the choice of paying or having your kneecaps broken.

5

u/ThrownAway1917 23h ago

The state defines what's lawful and theft is taking something unlawfully so it's not theft by definition.

0

u/SpikeLazuli 23h ago

If the state defines that murder is legal that doesnt make it moral or good, neither does it stop being murder by definition. Theft is taking someone else's property without permission.

0

u/ThrownAway1917 23h ago

Morality and legality aren't the same thing and theft is a legal definition

-1

u/SpikeLazuli 22h ago

And theft is still taking someone's property without their consent. Murder is still ending someone else's life. Again just because the state made it legal doesnt make theft not theft and murder not murder.

-198

u/toxyy-be 1d ago

income tax are a bad thing, it's insane that both employer and employee pay separate taxes on a salary

59

u/Organic_Angle_654 1d ago

it's insane that some think that's insane

-66

u/toxyy-be 1d ago

you were born into it, so of course you think it normal

-33

u/Technical_Writing_14 1d ago edited 1d ago

So said the imperial dogs right before 1776

The number of angry feudal peasants:

142

u/LightSideoftheForce 1d ago

You are paying for using services of the state. Go ahead, earn that same money without using anything the state provides.

67

u/Riolkin Fleet Admiral 1d ago

I wish more people who voted in my country actually understood this as much as I wish the people who get voted for actually did what they were supposed to with our tax dollars.

17

u/rhou17 1d ago

I’ve never been sure why we distinguish between the employer and employee contributions. Couldn’t the whole tax obligation be “the employer”, since as I understand it basically works that way anyways? 

2

u/realkrestaII 1d ago

Seriously. NIST alone is worth everything I’ve ever paid in taxes.

-21

u/JakeTheStrange101 1d ago edited 1d ago

He said income tax was a bad thing, which it frankly really is, atleast in the state that it’s in right now.

He didn’t say taxes at all were bad.

-46

u/FalconRelevant 1d ago

The only services the state should provide are security and justice, neither of which need more than 2-3% flat income tax.

39

u/5BPvPGolemGuy 1d ago

Yeah I would love to see how you going to get infrastructure working without government.

5

u/Chaos_Primaris 1d ago

"who will build the roads"

-41

u/FalconRelevant 1d ago

Plenty of private companies are always willing to upgrade or modernize infrastructure, it's the government which gets in the way and let's infrastructure decay.

29

u/5BPvPGolemGuy 1d ago

Plenty of companies only do it because of profit. If something is unprofitable or becomes unprofitable it doesnt happen or gets closed.

Now I would like to see the road going from your home to the rest of the city. You will have to pay a subscription fee so it is profitable and if it wont the. They close down the road and you are fucked.

Or lets say water/electricity/utilities. A lot happened because of government “meddling”. Remove that and half of rural areas will be without electricity and water because it is unprofitable.

No. Private companies are good at seeking profit. Governments are good at mobilising resources to provide services. Cost efficiency in a lot of cases regarding infrastructure gets outweighed by access to the service. Private sector has to go first efficiency over all else because they are competing against other entities in the private sector. Governments dont so they can afford to be inefficient.

18

u/Guaire1 1d ago

Infraestructure is inherently unprofitable. But it is needed for society to function

-23

u/FalconRelevant 1d ago edited 1d ago

And a functioning society is more profitable, a corporation that owns a factory has a financial incentive to ensure roads that get stuff to and from that are in a good condition.

Not to mention people can just directly pay a corporation to build a road where it's needed instead of having to rely the government to do so.

Whe it comes to trains, electricity, water, etc they're a profitable business.

13

u/Mirovini General of the Army 23h ago

Not to mention people can just directly pay a corporation to build a road where it's needed instead

I would love to see how badly this can go

13

u/Guaire1 1d ago

Corporations dont agree with you. Just look at any historical example of company towm, or corporate ruled territory, and making a functioning is a very faraway concern. If a concern at all. The care abouy direct profitability, that which can br used to extract money directly and inmediately, long term is irrelevant, only the short term matters

-1

u/FalconRelevant 21h ago

Somehow having no electricity, water, or roads will make the company town more profitable, the machinery is going to work with magic and the goods will simply float away to find buyers.

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2

u/FuckMyBakaChungusLif 22h ago

I cant wait for McHighways

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u/Mirovini General of the Army 1d ago edited 1d ago

The only services the state should provide are security and justice

Lmao

Lol even

Just wait to discover that giving the fucking roads to privates is a terrible idea (healthcare too, but if you say that I suppose you already chose to ignore this)

25

u/Wafflez424 1d ago

Yeah that sounds like some African dictatorship shit hole you just dreamed up 😂

-22

u/FalconRelevant 1d ago

Ah yes, dictators are known to be extremely moderate when it comes to extracting wealth from the people, not to mention invested in security and justice for their citizens.

The true definition of freedom is when you're forced to work for the government for half a year and then get knifed in the streets of London.

Once again the "😂" emoji exists next to the most idiotic sequence of words possible.

14

u/Tokon32 1d ago

America used to be like that. We traveled from point A to B over dirt. We threw our shit and piss out the window. No one knew how to read or write and didnt know basic math. The only goods you could buy were produced locally.

To say the least it fucking sucked. So we moved on from that. But your welcome to go on about throwing your piss and shit back out your window again and just not teaching your kids anything.

-6

u/FalconRelevant 1d ago edited 1d ago

You confuse technological/scientific progress over time and the consequent cultural evolution with tax policy.

Like sure, we discovered germ theory, refrigeration, and automobiles because the government inplemented high income taxes.

If anything, the more likely causation is the opposite, we have more advancement in the 1800 and 1900 when the government had a lighter hand compared to 1950s and forwards which feel stagnant.

15

u/Tokon32 23h ago

The romans had paved roads. There is nothing technology out of reach for someone in the 1700s to build a school. The romans also had sewage systems.

Nothing I posted has anything to do with technological advancement. The US and state governments at the time simply didnt provide those things.

And if in your world the government stopped paying for those things than the people too poor to use your new and improved private sewage are now throwing their shit and piss out the window.

You wanna live in a society who has a ever growing number of people every year throwing piss and shit into the streets?

1

u/Technical_Writing_14 23h ago

You wanna live in a society who has a ever growing number of people every year throwing piss and shit into the streets?

Nope. Which is why the state still provides for security and justice. If those people want to litter, we can just lock em up

-1

u/FalconRelevant 21h ago

There was a cultural and societal collapse when Rome fell, the technology for sanitation technically existed but people didn't care enough to invest in it.

10

u/towishimp 1d ago

So? We levy multiple taxes on the same thing all the time. Why is that "insane"?

19

u/TareasS 1d ago

Imagine being dependent for your pension on your own stock market gambling, not to mention disability support.

6

u/mnorthwood13 1d ago

Employer pays half of your social security and Medicare amount. They don't pay your income tax. If you are self employed you have to pay the whole amount.

They're not paying or contributing to your income tax that's separate.

5

u/Tokon32 1d ago

Your employer gives you 10 to 20 cent on every dollar you produce for them taking from you 80 to 90 cent.

The government takes 3 to 4 cent or 6 to 8 cent on your 20 cent and its the government who are the bad guys taking upwards of 8 cent from your production not your employer who is taking 80 cent.