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0 pointsrunarberg4y ago0 comments

> I am pretty sure the reason most people are mad about having to pay taxes is the thousands/tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands of dollars of their income that is taken from them.

Perhaps this depends. In the USA, perhaps. In Iceland, not so much (https://twitter.com/iamharaldur/status/1355490017288867841).

In the USA you have to pay your taxes and then you have to pay for your public insurances, where in most of Europe these are the same things. And perhaps tax payers in the USA are not happy with this. So to amend your statement, perhaps a more accurate one is: Most people are mad about paying taxes because of the thousands of dollars of income that is taken from them without any tangible benefits.

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xyzelement4y ago· 1 in thread

I bet if high taxes for high level of public service can work anywhere, Iceland is it. The population is small (350,000 people) and highly homogeneous. One Icelander is similar to another so problems are more common.

US is vastly larger. New York City alone has 3X as many public school students as Iceland has people. We are vastly diverse ethnically, culturally and geographically. It is much harder to find "problems and solutions everyone agrees to" in the US than in Iceland.

runarbergOP4y ago

That is hardly it... The US population largely agrees that the military budged is way too bloated, that infrastructure spending is way to low, and there is a general lack of a single payer health care system and tuition free public schools.

I’m sure you’ll find way more happiness towards paying taxes in the UK and China then in the USA despite being as diverse and even larger then the USA.

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