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Finance: Why Do Taxes Exist? 138 Views

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Why do taxes exist? Without taxes, Uncle Sam wouldn't be able to boss us around via the IRS, which uses taxpayer money to run the government. Those taxes happen at a local level as well, in the form of real estate taxes, state income taxes, and taxes on local sales, cleverly called sales tax.

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Transcript

00:04
Why do taxes exist and notice we're saying that with a kind of a whiny tone
00:10
alright well someone has to pay for this and this and this and this yep there are [Hand pointing to a road, a school, a plane and a park]
00:17
a bunch of different types of taxes in each of them carries a different purpose
00:20
yeah Road taxes get paid in large part out of
00:24
the gasoline you buy you got to pay for the building and maintaining of potholes [Car drives into a pothole]

00:28
right and that makes sense if you drive a car you use the roads more so you
00:33
should pay more for its use that's like a use tax get it cleverly named if for [Price for federal tax per gallon and state tax per gallon]
00:38
when you own a home you'll pay real estate tax and for the most part that
00:41
tax is designated to pay schools all right well but like everything [Hand holding money from real estate tax to pay for schools]
00:45
government related nothing is simple in America the federal government has kind
00:49
of a matching program for schools where they pay for a portion of the education
00:54
cost based on various factors and you don't want us to get into that in the [complicated equation on chalkboard]
00:58
video all right well the largest taxes most people pay are income taxes and
01:02
those generally pay for the government to you know govern us if a couple made a
01:06
hundred grand jointly in California last year they'd pay around thirty [A couple stood together in their home]
01:09
thirty-five grand in taxes that money covers things like shiny new airplanes
01:13
to force the mean countries to play nice in the schoolyard it covers repairs to
01:18
crumbling bridges and tunnels across the country it covers public protective [Bridges crumbling]
01:22
services like police and fire department people
01:24
it covers libraries and public parks, well don't feel like you're getting your
01:28
money's worth these days if you're ever not feeling that you can always move to [Woman chased from a park by a tiger]
01:33
the Ukraine discounts on citizenship they're everywhere
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