Talk:Income tax

message: I have archived this talk page.  GameKeeper 08:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive

message: This article needs a good image to stimulate interest.
I have quickly knocked up a graph :Image:Income Taxes By County.svg based on 
http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2649_34533_1942460_1_1_1_1,00.html table 1.2. Average % income taxes by County.
If this is considered suitable I will make it prettier, ie add titles and labels keys. FYI the 4 bars for each county represent % income paid in taxation based of 67%,100%,133% and 167% of average income.
I had used a stacked bar graph but unfortunately the Netherlands % income for 100% average wage is less than that of 67% average wage which could not be represented in this way. GameKeeper 10:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice! - I wonder if it is necessary to have all four bars though.  Maybe we should just pick one like 100% and state it below the chart.  As it is now, the image may be difficult to read due to size and this could help.  We could add another bar based on table 11.1 (Corporate income taxes).  Morphh  (talk) 13:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree, 4 bars does look cluttered. 100% is the obvious choice to retain. I am not sure if adding a bar for corperation tax would make it look cluttered again. I'll try both soon. GameKeeper 10:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  New version qith 2 bars one for corperate one for personal uploaded :Image:Income Taxes By County.svg, you may need to refresh you browser to see new version. I like this more , cleaner and more relevant to income tax as it shows both types. If we are agreed about basic data and graph format I will clean it up next and add titles etc. GameKeeper 16:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This looks great!  You got my vote.  Morphh  (talk) 16:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the nudge. I have uploaded what I have got at present GameKeeper 20:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately there seems to be a bug in it. Norway is not displayed until you zoom right into picture. I'll see if I can work out why and correct. Annoyingly the SVG works fine for me on my local machine GameKeeper 22:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Odd - Since your tweaking on it... See if you can get a tighter crop on it - looks like the right, left, and bottom have a bit of extra transparency and whitespace.  Might also want to see what the title text would look like as one line (or perhaps two).  The tighter you can make it, the larger the chart will look (and thus look better).  Don't take that as a critique - I think the image looks great!  Just figured since your tweaking it, we could see if these other changes might make it look that much better.  Morphh  (talk) 01:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think I have cracked the Norway problem, I don't see it with firefox or IE anymore.  Tightened the crop and put the title on a single line. Criticism is appreciated when it is constructive. GameKeeper 20:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have a bone to pick with this graph. For most people this is not a very accurate reference on how much personal tax is paid per country. Based on what I know about tax rates in several European countries, this graph seemed completely wrong. It wasn't until I downloaded the excel spreadsheet that I realised the figures used are inclusive of Employer social security contributions and then it started to make sense. Perhaps there should be a note explaining how the figures are derived? Or even better, perhaps there should be a separate graph showing only the tax and SSC paid by the employee. --JamesTheNumberless 13:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good point - I'll add this to the image caption.  If we have a source that adds employer payroll tax contributions, this would be a good supplemental or replacement image. Morphh  (talk) 14:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Morph you have it the wrong way round. The personnal income tax graph does include SSC payments (see the referenced data table 1.2 footnote). The reason for this is that it is a graph of 'income taxes' which are all taxes calulated on income. Many countries have a tax they call 'income tax' and in  additon taxes that may be called different things, such as SSC contributions, these are still classified as income taxes. I have added a note to the graph and changed your note on the page. I don't think excluding the SSC payments would make this of more use, in my opinion this is just a method of disguising the total tax cost of employment. To have a good comparision to another country it should be included. GameKeeper 15:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Opps - I guess I should have taken a closer look at the data before making the change.  Thanks.  I had misunderstood the comment and I agree that the information should be included as it shows a more accurate tax burden.  Morphh  (talk) 16:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text:  I agree that separating income tax from social security contributions would just lead to more confusion, however, I maintain that there is encyclopaedic value in showing the percentage paid by the employee against the percentage paid by the employer. In many countries, the employee pays far less tax than here in the UK, however, this is often because the employer is paying a lot more. Consequently  this makes the UK business more competitive as it can offer higher gross salaries at the same actual cost of employment. --JamesTheNumberless 15:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm pretty sure it is generally accepted that employer portions of payroll taxes come directly out of would be salaries to employees.  So I'm not sure the ratio would would make much difference, although the perception would be so.   It is more a tax shuffle to hide the tax burden then anything.  I don't disagree that such is important to specify.   I think that distinction is discussed on the articles regarding those particular taxes. I'm sure we can find a place to briefly mention it in this article.  Morphh  (talk) 16:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Image

message: This article needs a criticism section.  Morphh  (talk) 03:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism

message: I think this article was greatly improved during the Taxation Collaboration of the Month.  I think if we take care of the tasks in the todo list, we should be good to submit this for Peer Review and then for GA. Morphh  (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had a go with an auto review tool. The results are here Talk:Income tax/autoPR GameKeeper 21:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA drive

message: A user named Paul Conners has been repeatedly inserting the following material at the top of the article:
::This article is loaded up with all the predictable BULLSHIT that keeps many lawyers and accountants in business.
::The phrase "Income Tax" is a government promulgated semantical phrase which practically speaking means "Living Tax". "Income Tax" is a tax citizens pay for simply "maintaining their life by pursuing sustenance and shelter by having otherwise lawful employment". It is a clear assault on every American's supposedly unqualified "Right To Life". Yet "Income Tax" is somehow spoken of here in this article as if it was bestowed upon the American public by some spontaneous act of the creator. Where is it properly articulated that "income tax" is any different than "slavery by stealthy means"? This article speaks of "income tax" as a concept that has existed since the dawn of time. Why not just tax an American citizen for every heartbeat they have "Heartbeat Tax", or every breath they take "Breathing Tax"? It really is not that much different if you think about it. "Income Tax" is nothing but a "legalized" assault on the American citizens by the government. There are ways to finance necessary government services without taxing a citizens' pursuit of sustenance and shelter through lawful labor. But I guess those ways would not allow the government to weazel it's way into every nook and cranny of our lives. So those methods are not prefered by our power hungry government. 
Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, No Original Research. Wikipedia is not a proper forum for venting your personal views. Please observe Wikipedia policies & guidelines. Yours, Famspear 04:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The user has been blocked from editing for 31 hours in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy as a result of the repeated abuse of editing privileges. Morphh  (talk) 04:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Paul Conners commentary

message: uk taxation needs updating re budget —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.159.16.219 (talk) 16:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  uk tax update 

message: An anonymous user changed the intro to read that an income tax is a "direct tax." My reversion of this edit was inadvertently denoted as a "minor" edit, and it is not a minor edit. As explained in various Wikipedia articles, some income taxes (particularly in the United States) have been considered direct taxes and others have been considered indirect taxes. Further, the terms "direct tax" and "indirect tax" have more than one technical meaning (even within a given country). The direct-indirect dichotomy is very complex. Further, we probably should keep the article international in scope. So, I would argue that we do not want to categorically say that an income tax is either a direct tax or an indirect tax. The technical distinctions are already explained in detail in various relevant articles. Yours, Famspear 15:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Another editor re-inserted the link to the article on direct tax, so that this article incorrectly stated that an "income tax is a direct tax." I reverted. Saying that an income tax is a direct tax is like making the categorical statement that "a Chevrolet is a Lumina." Some Chevrolets are not Luminas. Indeed, some Chevrolets are not cars at all, but are trucks. The flat statement that an income tax is a "direct tax" could be correct only if all income taxes were direct taxes -- which they are not. Further, as already explained, the terms "direct tax" and "indirect tax" have more than one meaning, which may not only vary from one country to the next but also may vary within one country. To say that an income tax is a direct tax is not only incorrect, it is meaningless. Famspear 15:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Income tax: direct versus indirect

message: These four lists need attention to be synchronized:
*Flat tax adoption around the world
*Flat tax
*Income tax#Countries with no personal income tax
*Tax rates around the world
Discuss here Talk:Tax_rates_around_the_world#Contradictions_in_the_list_with_other_articles
Alinor 18:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradictions in the list with other articles 

message: The middle five paragraphs of the section advocating a tax on the gross incomes of corporations seem inappropriate to the article for several reasons and I believe they should be deleted/modified. They read to me as POV and/or Original Research.  Even if the many [citation needed] fields were filled with legitimate sources, giving this theory five paragraphs in a section that contains only seven paragraphs, gives it undue weight.   Even the last paragraph, which appears to critique the previous five, does little to mitigate this.
These paragraphs appear to me to be a fringe theory and perhaps should be removed or at least merely summed up in a paragraph or two.  I have no personal expertise on this topic, only an interest, and I am a great admirer of Famspear and Morphh, as well as other contributors, so I of course bow to your expertise.
Thank you for your attention.
SunsHand 21:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Good catch, and I have deleted that text. When you see something like this, be bold and edit it. If you edit that part (or other articles), the citation flags often have a date. If the date is older than a month or two, it's reasonable to delete as unverified. Welcome to Wikipedia.--Gregalton 05:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with SunsHand and Gregalton; based on a quick read, the material appeared to be pretty much unsourced. Famspear 06:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion about "Critique of income tax" section. 

message: Income tax is back in Uruguay, according to this page:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d82c1f02-27fc-11dc-80da-000b5df10621.html
Antipoeten 22:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Income tax in Uruguay 

message: Dear user at IP82.95.194.23: Please stop adding tax protester material regarding "Tom Cryer" (for which there is a separate article) and repeatedly reverting other editors. The material you are inserting is false and, more importantly, is not neutral and not properly sourced.
Also, please explain your edits at the time you make them by providing a description in the edit summary box. You should also consider discussing your edits on this talk page or on the talk page for the Cryer article.
It appears that you have violated the 3 revert rule, which may be considered disruptive editing. Please review Wikipedia guidelines and strive to work for consensus with other editors. Yours, Famspear 17:51, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added another warning to the talk page for the user at IP82.95.194.23. Famspear 20:22, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Violation of edit warring rule and the 3 revert rule continues by user at IP82.95.194.23, with an eighth reversion (8th reversion occurred after posting of warning template on user's talk page -- technically, the third warning). User has now reverted four different editors in less than 12 hours, without making any response on talk pages or providing any explanation in edit summary boxes. Famspear 22:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It's clearly not precedent-setting.  It's a jury verdict.  The court rejected all the tax protester arguments.  If they had accepted one, that might be precedent-setting.  — Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 13:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear anonymous editor at IP82.95.194.23: I already have a real job making big bucks. I notice that you are linking to the "synaptic sparks" web site, of all places. You will also notice that the operator of that web site tried to tangle with me about the meaning of the tax law in the spring of 2006. Here's what happened to him:
. He has never responded to that post. Si tu n'es pas un avocat, evites un disputation avec un avocat au sujet de la loi. Famspear 21:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disruptive edits on tax protester material regarding [[Tom Cryer]]

message: if you find an old gold bar and decide to keep it, what is suppoed to happen?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.24 (talk) 17:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  sth from nothing 

message: A request for comment has been opened on the general topic of tax protester theories, and whether the articles that address them are NPOV. bd2412 T 18:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment]] 

message: Just a reminder that I have proposed to call for a conclusion to this discussion on tax protester rhetoric on February 6. If anyone has anything more to add to the discussion, speak now! bd2412 T 16:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment]] reminder

message: Bobhurt and his sock puppet BobHurt have been blocked. See  and 
While of course everyone should assume WP:GOODFAITH, Bob has stated his only reason for posting these things was as a complaint against the government.
You can complaint [sic] against government (if you do it the right way) at Wikipedia. I have written lots of complaints at the US income tax discussion pages, and much of the content is still there. 
Since this material was not WP:GOODFAITH, it ought be deleted.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.39.221.157 (talk) 20:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Bobhurt, BobHurt, and using the talk page as a "complaint against government"

message: I was going to add this external link to the Income Tax article but after reading the guidelines I was unsure whether it would be proper... I decided to leave this note here so people with more knowledge on the subject could decide about adding it or not.
Video and slides from Floyd Norris (The New York Times), on the history of US Income Tax  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gustavoexel (talk • contribs) 03:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video + slides by Floyd Norris (NYT), ok to add to the External Links? 

message: In the comparison chart of income tax and corporate tax, the average income tax for the US is shown to be around 28%.  This under represents the amount of income/personal tax that is paid in the U.S.  If you add in the SS taxes as well as state and local taxes then it would be a better comparison to the taxes of say, Sweden.  One might also argue that the cost of health insurance be added to the overall tax figure since in many of the countries with higher taxes than the U.S (and lower for that matter), a person gets free health care (health care paid for by their taxes).  I estimate that I pay just under 50% in fed/local/state/ss taxes in the U.S.  If I added in my health care costs it would bring to something over 50%.  Perhaps a more detailed view of what each country provides for their taxes (universities, health care, etc.) would make the comparisons more valid.
I look forward to seeing the continuing improvements.  Halitun (talk) 18:16, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This data might be represented better in the Tax rates around the world article.  As far as the countries, I think this article is a poor example of how to structure an article.  We should not have a list of countries.  We should just describe what income taxation is, the history, principals, examples, and discuss the particular praise and criticisms.  I think we should remove all the country stuff (sections 3 & 5), which should be presented in their own articles like Taxation in the United States, Income taxes in the United States, or FICA. Morphh  (talk) 19:40, 05 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need to improve tax comparison among countries 

message: The world maps with red and green colours don't look very NPOV but seems to
suggest that low income taxes are good and high income taxes bad. IMHO another colour
scheme would be preferable to the present one.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.229.20.166 (talk) 14:19, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manipulative graphics 

message: The very existence of a 'critique' section without any section than explains the justifications given for imposing income tax seems in itself to be POV by exclusion. Perhaps we should add a section that briefly describes the various arguments given for the imposition and maintenance of income tax?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.227.85.134 (talk) 14:19, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  If there is a 'critique' section surely there should be a 'justifications' section too for the sake of balance? 

message: Currently "Payroll" section includes:  "These withholdings contribute to repayment of an employee's personal income tax obligation".  Why "repayment"?  If anything, shouldn't it be "prepayment"? Peter Delmonte (talk) 06:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Repayment" ? 

message: I saw Al Gore on a youtube video saying that Bismarck introduced the "tax on jobs" and we should replace it with green taxes instead - is that referring to income tax? So was Bismarck the one who introduced the first modern progressive income tax system? Wikidea 08:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: I inserted these three graphs to illustrate the discussion on progressive income tax because they show the wide range of rates in the U.S., the wide history of the U.S's top rate, and the progressive effects of the top rate. There are no other graphs in this article at present, just a map. The graphs were removed with an edit summary "All relate to _income tax in the US_; we would need additional sources for relevance." Per WP:OI I do not believe we need any further sources for the obvious fact that these graphs illustrate the subject being discussed. The fact that they relate to the US is true and orthoginal to the fact that they illustrate the subject being discussed in the text adjacent to them. So I am replacing them. —Cupco 08:03, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree with Arthur Rubin.  I'm finding it difficult to relate all of them to the section, particularly with the U.S. focus (see Wikipedia:Systemic bias).  I can see the first image, but the caption fails to convey the relevance and meaning to the topic.  So let's say I'm from the U.K. - what does "Marginal and average income tax rates in the US for 2009." mean to me as related to the "Principles of taxation" - the caption should convey what is being demonstrated as related to the content.   Taking that to the next two, I'm not sure what the top marginal U.S. income tax rates or the average annual growth in U.S. employment has to do with that section.  Morphh  (talk) 13:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think of systemic bias as more like writing which describes the U.S. without referring to it. We have a lot of that. When you use the US as an example, and it's clearly labeled as the US and not the world in general, that may tend to be provincialism but it's not bias. The text that these graphs are next to describe the variation of progressive tax rates and the arguments over their effects. The CBO recently commented on the same effect ("higher tax rates for the wealthy are statistically associated with higher levels of growth"). —Cupco 19:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

text: I'm OK with using the U.S. as an example (as we did with the first image) if the images actually demonstrated the "Principles of taxes", but the last two don't.  The section discussed the tax net, tax progressivity, pay-as-you-earn, tax refunds, and tax theory (Adam Smith, Frank Chodorov).  What does that have to do with "Top marginal U.S. income tax rates from 1913 to 2011" and "Average annual growth in U.S. employment, by top income tax bracket rate, 1940–2011"?  This section is discussing principles - what principle do they demonstrate?  We're not discussing tax rates through history.  We're not discussing annual growth (which this graph is easily both WP:POV and WP:SYN).  I think one picture is sufficient for the section, but a picture of Adam Smith would be much more relevant to the topic and better than the two additional ones presented. Morphh  (talk) 21:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not an article about the principles of income tax, it's an article about income tax, and it's supposed to be WP:COMPREHENSIVE. But let's say that it were only about principles. How is a general attribute such as the top bracket rate and the historical outcomes not part of the principles of income tax? —Cupco 01:23, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  US-specific graphs used to illustrate an example 

message: The section violates WP:SEEALSO, as most are also in  links at the top of sections of the body.  Also, many of those connect to Taxation in country, when they should link to Income tax in country or Taxation in country#Income tax.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:24, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also entries 

message: I have substantially expanded the article, other than the history parts. Prior to this expansion, the article was a start class article, meeting almost none of the criteria for C class let alone its B rating. The expanded version is, I believe, at least up to C class, and I have so rated it.
Edits are welcome. This article gets lots of hits, and probably was leaving readers far more frustrated than informed. Let’s try to get it to B class. Frankly, that will take a lot of additional work, and my time is limited.
Oldtaxguy (talk) 01:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overhaul, re-rate 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It looks that there are typos or stuff to fix. Socialistguy (talk) 17:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Modern Era" Section 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Wikipedia doesn't seem to have an article about "return-free filing". If it doesn't, why not? 
In 1985, Ronald Reagan said "We call it the return-free system".  
ReadyReturn is about a version in 2005 and says "More than 20 other countries implement pre-populated returns for some of their taxpayers." 
And there is a section in TurboTax article: TurboTax#Opposition_to_return-free_filing. --EarthFurst (talk) 09:28, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  return-free filing? (ie. government does your taxes) 

message: About income tax 49.37.136.7 (talk) 03:39, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Income tax