Think you are not paying a lot of income tax? If you’re self-employed, you are paying 15 percent of everything you make to Social Security. If you work for someone, you are paying 7.5 percent of your gross pay to Social Security and your boss is matching that amount. Depending what tax bracket you fall in, you are paying federal income tax.

Now, if your income falls below the federal minimum, you probably think you do not have to pay that tax or you probably think those are the only federal taxes you pay. That’s not the way it works. Democrats tell you they won’t raise taxes on the poor or the middle class, they tell you they are only going to do that to the rich and big business. What they don’t tell you is that the so-called rich do not put their money in a mattress and sit on it — they invest it in businesses that provide jobs. The business has to make a profit to stay in business so when the government raises their taxes they have two choices — either to pass that cost on to you in the price of their product or to move their business out of the country to cut labor costs to keep their price competitive.

So any time taxes are raised on any one group of people, they are indirectly raised on everyone. The estimated cost of federal taxes added to a can of peaches equals 68 percent of what you pay for it. And new car: 36 percent. Any time you buy a product, you are paying all of the federal taxes that have been paid to produce that product plus the cost of all accountants to keep tract of it.

Check out www.fairtax.org and find out how to take all of your paycheck home.

Stan Siems

Resident

Ackley