----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 6:42 PM Subject: Re: Social Security
> * Dan Minette ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > But, I think they are doing funny math. Let me do a back of the envelope: > > No, you are calculating a different quantity. As I said in my post, the > figures are "lifetime net tax rate". Basically, the percentage of income > you pay in taxes net of the benefits you receive from the government, > over your lifetime. Right, but I didn't even try to figure the net after subtraction of benefits received because I was well below 40% before subtraction. I've gone to a couple of other places to try to get a definition and the clearest one I received was: Net taxes takes account of both taxes paid and benefits received -- for example, a worker born in 1950 can expect to pay 43 percent of his or her lifetime income in taxes and receive 9.5 percent of it back in the form of Social Security and other government benefits, for a net lifetime tax rate of 33.4 percent. at http://www.ncpa.org/oped/bartlett/may2698.html Without all the proper compensation for inflation, and rises and wages figured in, I thought the net lifetime tax rate was: (taxes paid to government over one's lifetime- cash benefits received from government over ones lifetime)/total income over one's lifetime. That seems like the logical > Because of the way SS provides spousal benefits, the non-working spouse > will get a very large benefit for not working, and only a slightly > higher benefit for working. Which was reasonable during the time where one spouse worked full time in the home...and SS was a basic income that kept people out of poverty. I won't argue that things do not need to be tuned a bit for the new realities. In particular, there is no reason to favor all the income being received by one spouse. > If you need more detail, let me know and I'll type something up this > weekend. Mostly, I'd like to know if and why my interpretation of what the lifetime net tax rate is wrong. I appreciate your offer to give me a more detailed explanation. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
