Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes. • Hacker News Board

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#41

Post by Semiapies » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 8:50 PM UTC

2arrs2ells wrote: post #35

higher wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see I have been rated down for posting the truth. If you would like to read about the truth, you can find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States) "Congress invested these surpluses into special series, non-marketable U.S. Treasury securities held by the Social Security Trust Fund. Under the law, the government bonds held by Social Security are backed by the full faith and credit of the…

No, you've been rated down for a reply that does not actually address the comment the parent poster made. Your comment on Social Security accounting (which is correct, as far as I know), has no bearing on the parent's observation that FICA tax doesn't scale linearly - because it is capped at a certain point.

These numbers are based on expenditures; to cap off the FICA portion of the receipt despite actual spending would be misleading.

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#42

Post by Semiapies » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 8:51 PM UTC

theli0nheart wrote: post #20

simon_ wrote: post #18

I don't think this is right... FICA is capped, so my social security contribution should not scale linearly with income.

You're right--the calculation I do is linear, so I will try and make this more accurate later tonight.

The contribution is capped, but spending isn't.

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#43

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 8:56 PM UTC

theli0nheart wrote: post #2

I made this last night after being inspired by http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1302494... All the calculations are done with Javascript. Let me know what you think!

Good idea and good instincts. I hope you have a scalable hosting solution, because the presentation and domain name are so well chosen that I can see you getting millions of page landings by tomorrow.

For your own benefit, perhaps some thoughtfully-filtered Adwords or so would help cover those costs and/or make you some ca$h.

For the site itself, keep the simple presentation but perhaps add + signs to allow people to break things out if they wish. Any large program whose share of the budget people love to complain about often turns out to include some things they actually support, so it has excellent education potential.

Discreet links to more advanced presentations like graphs and so forth could later help to build out that initial traffic to become the 'go-to' site for accessible stats, mich like fivethirtyeight.com became well-known for unbiased electoral analysis.

A fun thing might be a time machine that let you look back at tax rates of years past, with the receipt getting increasingly yellowed and/or using more and more antique-looking fonts. By the time you get to 1776 everything is in copperplate :-)

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#44

Post by DavidSJ » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 9:01 PM UTC

Does this include employer Social Security and Medicare expenses too? If not, it should, since they come out of your paycheck just as much as employee taxes.

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#45

Post by theli0nheart » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 9:02 PM UTC

cbetz wrote: post #29

xenophanes wrote: post #23

wtf are "Miscellaneous mandatory programs" that cost almost as much as social security?

via the google: http://useconomy.about.com/od/fiscalpolicy/p/Mandatory.htm "These programs include Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Child Nutrition and Tax Credits, Supplemental Security for the Disabled and Student Loans."

Just added this in the tooltips.

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#46

Post by jacoblyles » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 9:06 PM UTC

I need to remember this for the next time someone tells me my desire for lower tax rates means I must not desire roads, police, and fire fighters. It's remarkable how little of the tax burden of a modern state actually goes towards essential services. A modern country could probably be run with single-digit taxes. You would be missing things like a space program, science subsidies, farm subsidies, and socialized retirement insurance, but you could still pay for the rule of law and basic public goods.

Also, does this include recent large one-time stimulus spending bills, or were those in the next fiscal year?

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#47

Post by karzeem » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 9:07 PM UTC

Ha, these calculators have had a great past 24 hours. I made one today too: http://taxes.kareemshaya.com

You did a very nice job with the receipt vibe.

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#48

Post by hardtke » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 9:09 PM UTC

The problem here is that for every dollar the government currently collects, they spend two. This should be reflected.

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#49

Post by theli0nheart » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 9:10 PM UTC

SMrF wrote: post #34

Can you put little voting arrows next to the line items so I can vote up NASA and vote down defense spending? Oh wait, representative democracy. Damn.

If only Congress had an API...

    POST /house-of-representatives/?district=4&action=expel
    POST /house-of-representatives/?district=4&action=elect&candidate=329183

Re: Where My Money Goes: A visual receipt for your taxes.

#50

Post by jderick » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 9:11 PM UTC

SMrF wrote: post #34

Can you put little voting arrows next to the line items so I can vote up NASA and vote down defense spending? Oh wait, representative democracy. Damn.

Would be interesting to see how people vote, even if it has no direct effect.