Who pays for government?

[Duke Leto]

Your turn. Instead of making baseless bullshit claims, how about actually posting some real data about the tax rates of the top .1% (not included in this analysis) instead of talking straight out of your ass and spraying verbal diarrhea all over the place?

You know what? No. Go Fuck Yourself.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That's not a useful number.

Suppose the lunch bill is $0 (you found a fly in your soup or something). One guy puts in $1 and the others take it away. The first guy ends up paying an infinite percentage. But in reality hardly any money exchanged hands and the group got a free meal anyway.

An odd criticism in that the numbers involved are rather large.

If we assume 25 million households per quintile, the total net taxes paid by quintile are:

5th - receive $215 billion
4th - receive $313 billion
3rd - receive $228 billion
2nd - pay $18 billion
1st - pay $1,163 billion
Total net = pay $425 billion

The percentages are -51%, -74%, -54%, 4%, 274%.

The top 20% pay 274% of the net taxes collected.

It's just facts.

Do you have any idea what the third quintile is receiving in the category of "average government transfer"? That isn't a snub, I'm clueless on what it is saying. I paid federal taxes, but the numbers say I don't.

The numbers are CBOs, so the stats are most likely not cooked, but your numbers above make no sense in the context we are viewing them. There is something the numbers are telling us, and I think it is getting lost in the translation.

Ignoring the percent taxed verses transfers received, the top 20% and 1% pay the gross amount of taxes, but are paying within a reasonable margin relative to the percent of national income they took in.

 

[dismal]

An odd criticism in that the numbers involved are rather large.

If we assume 25 million households per quintile, the total net taxes paid by quintile are:

5th - receive $215 billion
4th - receive $313 billion
3rd - receive $228 billion
2nd - pay $18 billion
1st - pay $1,163 billion
Total net = pay $425 billion

The percentages are -51%, -74%, -54%, 4%, 274%.

The top 20% pay 274% of the net taxes collected.

It's just facts.

Do you have any idea what the third quintile is receiving in the category of "average government transfer"? That isn't a snub, I'm clueless on what it is saying. I paid federal taxes, but the numbers say I don't.

The numbers are CBOs, so the stats are most likely not cooked, but your numbers above make no sense in the context we are viewing them. There is something the numbers are telling us, and I think it is getting lost in the translation.

Ignoring the percent taxed verses transfers received, the top 20% and 1% pay the gross amount of taxes, but are paying within a reasonable margin relative to the percent of national income they took in.

I would guess most of what the 3rd quintile is receiving is Social Security and Medicare.

Many individuals in the third quintile do not receive these, but we are looking at a group, not individuals.

The ones that do receive them apparently receive more than the rest of the quintile pays.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Do you have any idea what the third quintile is receiving in the category of "average government transfer"? That isn't a snub, I'm clueless on what it is saying. I paid federal taxes, but the numbers say I don't.

The numbers are CBOs, so the stats are most likely not cooked, but your numbers above make no sense in the context we are viewing them. There is something the numbers are telling us, and I think it is getting lost in the translation.

Ignoring the percent taxed verses transfers received, the top 20% and 1% pay the gross amount of taxes, but are paying within a reasonable margin relative to the percent of national income they took in.

I would guess most of what the 3rd quintile is receiving is Social Security and Medicare.

Many individuals in the third quintile do not receive these, but we are looking at a group, not individuals.

I guess I can see that.

The ones that do receive them apparently receive more than the rest of the quintile pays.

I don't like the idea of sloshing together the employed and retired into the same groups. It makes way too many implications that aren't accurate. It states people in the middle quintile aren't contributing enough in taxes. The reality is that the retired with middle quintile income don't contribute much in taxation... which is hardly a shocker. The result also indicates a deficit within Social Security and Medicare, another thing we already know.

 

[Togo]

That would suggest that all healthcare provisions, including payroll contributions, are being treated as a 'transfer' even though the money is spent by the government and never reaches the actual taxpayer. That might explain why the figure for 'transfers' is so much higher than people would expect by calculating based on their own taxes.

 

[dismal]

I would guess most of what the 3rd quintile is receiving is Social Security and Medicare.

Many individuals in the third quintile do not receive these, but we are looking at a group, not individuals.

I guess I can see that.

The ones that do receive them apparently receive more than the rest of the quintile pays.

I don't like the idea of sloshing together the employed and retired into the same groups. It makes way too many implications that aren't accurate. It states people in the middle quintile aren't contributing enough in taxes. The reality is that the retired with middle quintile income don't contribute much in taxation... which is hardly a shocker. The result also indicates a deficit within Social Security and Medicare, another thing we already know.

It's not without it's problems.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad approximation of what your net will be over your life if you stay in the 3rd quintile.

And, yes, I undertand there are long term deficits in Social Security and Medicare. IIRC it's about 20% for SS (i.e., the average person pays 80% of the average benefits over their life.) I would think that there are greater deficits than the average deficit in the lower quintiles.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I guess I can see that.

The ones that do receive them apparently receive more than the rest of the quintile pays.

I don't like the idea of sloshing together the employed and retired into the same groups. It makes way too many implications that aren't accurate. It states people in the middle quintile aren't contributing enough in taxes. The reality is that the retired with middle quintile income don't contribute much in taxation... which is hardly a shocker. The result also indicates a deficit within Social Security and Medicare, another thing we already know.

It's not without it's problems.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad approximation of what your net will be over your life if you stay in the 3rd quintile.

It depends on how many retired people that are in the population. That will likely have a significant influence on the transfer for the third quintile. I'd be interested to see the numbers from 20 years ago.

And, yes, I undertand there are long term deficits in Social Security and Medicare. IIRC it's about 20% for SS (i.e., the average person pays 80% of the average benefits over their life.) I would think that there are greater deficits than the average deficit in the lower quintiles.

Greater deficits, but seeing that their income is that low, it'll be hard to squeeze blood from the stone, especially the bottom 20%. That said, I think it'd been better if they replaced "transfers" with two line items, "support transfers" and "retirement transfers".

 

[dismal]

I guess I can see that.

The ones that do receive them apparently receive more than the rest of the quintile pays.

I don't like the idea of sloshing together the employed and retired into the same groups. It makes way too many implications that aren't accurate. It states people in the middle quintile aren't contributing enough in taxes. The reality is that the retired with middle quintile income don't contribute much in taxation... which is hardly a shocker. The result also indicates a deficit within Social Security and Medicare, another thing we already know.

It's not without it's problems.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad approximation of what your net will be over your life if you stay in the 3rd quintile.

It depends on how many retired people that are in the population. That will likely have a significant influence on the transfer for the third quintile. I'd be interested to see the numbers from 20 years ago.

And, yes, I undertand there are long term deficits in Social Security and Medicare. IIRC it's about 20% for SS (i.e., the average person pays 80% of the average benefits over their life.) I would think that there are greater deficits than the average deficit in the lower quintiles.

Greater deficits, but seeing that their income is that low, it'll be hard to squeeze blood from the stone, especially the bottom 20%. That said, I think it'd been better if they replaced "transfers" with two line items, "support transfers" and "retirement transfers".

In the underlying report, Table 3, there are some breakdowns of income by source.

In percentage terms the income by quintile for SS and Medicare only are 18%, 21%, 18%, 11%, 3%.

In absolute dollars these amount to $4430, $9510, $11,950, $10,730, $7370. The last one may be subject to +/- $2000 of rounding error.

It may be possible to conclude from this that retirees collecting SS and Medicare are disproportionately found in the 3rd quintile, but the effect does not seem dramatic. If anything, it would seem they are somewhat less likely to be found in the top.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

More detail: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49440

We currently have one of the most progressive tax systems in place in the history of the United States. Is that because that's how the oligarchy wants it?

I skimmed through the thread to check that the following criticism had not already been made.

This is a pretty magnificent example of Macbeth's "Fiend that Lies like Truth."

The problem with this chart is that it mixes the actual undertaxed oligarchs, the centimillionaires and billionaires, AKA the 1% and the 0.1%, in the same pot as the rest of the well-off professionals: doctors, lawyers and upper managers, all in the top 25%.

Were those categories broken out from the top quintile, what one would see is a flattening and reversal of of the percentage of income paid in taxes as incomes increase up above $250,000, especially prior to the blunting of the Bush Tax cuts when Dividend income was tax free. At that point, the only effective tax on income would be Capital Gains, so one would see cases like Warren Buffet getting an effective tax rate of 11% for the period under discussion compared to a Doctor or Lawyer at $250,000 paying 18.9%.

And this is before one takes into account the overspending the government makes towards private contractors like Haliburton, the ownership of which is tilted to the uppermost echelons of the income distribution and the absurd capital gains for which are not counted as "transfers".

Shame on you, Axulus, for either expecting us not to be aware of these major caveats to your misleading chart or for being sufficiently blind and stupid to have accepted the argument you are making at face value after getting it from some right-wing hack rag.

Thanks, Duke. I didn't have the patience and courtesy to point out the obvious to an obvious scammer.

 

[ronburgundy]

Point of Clarification: Are the tax numbers reported in the OP link actual taxes paid based upon the direct empirical evidence of actual filings of specific people or theoretically estimated taxes paid based upon official tax rates and a host of questionable assumptions?

Direct empirical evidence of actual findings. The CBO provides a comprehensive report and cites its sources, and is considered to be nonpartisan in its analysis. The only "theoretical" part of the report is when it estimates the impact of the 2013 tax increases on the tax burden distribution.

Whether the CBO is non-partisan isn't the issue. The issue is whether they are using actual tax filings or official tax rates as the basis of the numbers?, and if using actual filings, did they use them from every person in the country or a sample?, and if a sample, how was the sample drawn and how big was it?
If they used actual filings this info about the sampling method and size would be part of the report, but I haven't locate it yet. IF they used offical tax rates and merely estimated taxes paid, then there wouldn't be any info on the sampling methods. So, can you point to exactly where in the report the CBO states that they used empirical data from actual filings and the methods of sampling used.

BTW, even if they used actual filings, that wouldn't include any of income or acquired wealth that the wealthy hide and do not report in their filings, which all reasonable people know is quite a bit. The wealthier a person is, the greater the % of their true income they are able to hide from the government, so the more their tax filings over-estimates the true % of their income paid in taxes.

 

[dismal]

Direct empirical evidence of actual findings. The CBO provides a comprehensive report and cites its sources, and is considered to be nonpartisan in its analysis. The only "theoretical" part of the report is when it estimates the impact of the 2013 tax increases on the tax burden distribution.

Whether the CBO is non-partisan isn't the issue. The issue is whether they are using actual tax filings or official tax rates as the basis of the numbers?, and if using actual filings, did they use them from every person in the country or a sample?, and if a sample, how was the sample drawn and how big was it?
If they used actual filings this info about the sampling method and size would be part of the report, but I haven't locate it yet. IF they used offical tax rates and merely estimated taxes paid, then there wouldn't be any info on the sampling methods. So, can you point to exactly where in the report the CBO states that they used empirical data from actual filings and the methods of sampling used.

BTW, even if they used actual filings, that wouldn't include any of income or acquired wealth that the wealthy hide and do not report in their filings, which all reasonable people know is quite a bit. The wealthier a person is, the greater the % of their true income they are able to hide from the government, so the more their tax filings over-estimates the true % of their income paid in taxes.

You could read the report that was linked. It addresses these mysteries. For example:

Data Sources on Household Income
Information on household income for this analysis came
from two primary sources: the Internal Revenue Service’s
Statistics of Income (SOI) and the Census Bureau’s
Current Population Survey (CPS). The core data came
from the SOI, a nationally representative sample of
individual income tax returns. The number of returns
sampled grew over the time period studied, ranging
from roughly 90,000 in some of the early years to more
than 300,000 in the later years. CBO used the full Individual
Income Tax file, which is more detailed than the
public-use version of the file. The agency supplemented
those data with data from the CPS’s Annual Social
and Economic Supplement; those data identify demographic
characteristics and income for a large sample of
households.
Both the SOI and the CPS lack important information
needed for estimating and comparing after-tax household
income over time. The SOI does not include information
about people who do not file federal tax returns, and it
does not report all income from government cash transfer
programs. It also offers no information on the receipt of
in-kind transfers and benefits, and it is organized by tax
filing units rather than by households. The CPS lacks
detailed information on high-income households, it does
not report capital gains, it underreports other income
from capital, and it lacks information on the deductions
and adjustments necessary to compute taxes.
Together, however, the two sources can form a more
complete picture. To overcome limitations in each source
of data, CBO statistically matched SOI records to corresponding
CPS records on the basis of demographic
characteristics and income. Each pairing resulted in a
new record that took on the demographic characteristics
of the CPS record and the income reported in the SOI.
(Some types of income—certain transfers and in-kind
benefits, for example—appear only in the CPS; their values
were drawn directly from that survey.) Because some
households are not required to file tax returns, the SOI
does not have data on every household in the nation.
To create a sample that was representative of the entire
population, once all SOI records were matched to CPS
records, the remaining CPS records were recorded as
nonfiling households and their income values were
taken directly from the CPS.

 

[ronburgundy]

Whether the CBO is non-partisan isn't the issue. The issue is whether they are using actual tax filings or official tax rates as the basis of the numbers?, and if using actual filings, did they use them from every person in the country or a sample?, and if a sample, how was the sample drawn and how big was it?
If they used actual filings this info about the sampling method and size would be part of the report, but I haven't locate it yet. IF they used offical tax rates and merely estimated taxes paid, then there wouldn't be any info on the sampling methods. So, can you point to exactly where in the report the CBO states that they used empirical data from actual filings and the methods of sampling used.

BTW, even if they used actual filings, that wouldn't include any of income or acquired wealth that the wealthy hide and do not report in their filings, which all reasonable people know is quite a bit. The wealthier a person is, the greater the % of their true income they are able to hide from the government, so the more their tax filings over-estimates the true % of their income paid in taxes.

You could read the report that was linked. It addresses these mysteries. For example:

Data Sources on Household Income
Information on household income for this analysis came
from two primary sources: the Internal Revenue Service’s
Statistics of Income (SOI) and the Census Bureau’s
Current Population Survey (CPS). The core data came
from the SOI, a nationally representative sample of
individual income tax returns. The number of returns
sampled grew over the time period studied, ranging
from roughly 90,000 in some of the early years to more
than 300,000 in the later years. CBO used the full Individual
Income Tax file, which is more detailed than the
public-use version of the file. The agency supplemented
those data with data from the CPS’s Annual Social
and Economic Supplement; those data identify demographic
characteristics and income for a large sample of
households.
Both the SOI and the CPS lack important information
needed for estimating and comparing after-tax household
income over time. The SOI does not include information
about people who do not file federal tax returns, and it
does not report all income from government cash transfer
programs. It also offers no information on the receipt of
in-kind transfers and benefits, and it is organized by tax
filing units rather than by households. The CPS lacks
detailed information on high-income households, it does
not report capital gains, it underreports other income
from capital, and it lacks information on the deductions
and adjustments necessary to compute taxes.
Together, however, the two sources can form a more
complete picture. To overcome limitations in each source
of data, CBO statistically matched SOI records to corresponding
CPS records on the basis of demographic
characteristics and income. Each pairing resulted in a
new record that took on the demographic characteristics
of the CPS record and the income reported in the SOI.
(Some types of income—certain transfers and in-kind
benefits, for example—appear only in the CPS; their values
were drawn directly from that survey.) Because some
households are not required to file tax returns, the SOI
does not have data on every household in the nation.
To create a sample that was representative of the entire
population, once all SOI records were matched to CPS
records, the remaining CPS records were recorded as
nonfiling households and their income values were
taken directly from the CPS.

Good. Thanks. So that means that the income taxes paid were based on a sample of about 0.3% to 1% of all US tax filings, and that the taxes paid by the richest 1% were based upon samples of between 900 to 2500 filers, depending on year.

So then, how about the fact that wealthier people hide a greater % of their income from the government and thus their filings will more greatly overestimate the % of their income paid in taxes. What % of the poor and middle class have secret Swiss Bank accounts, etc., compared to the wealthiest 1%?

 

[dismal]

You could read the report that was linked. It addresses these mysteries. For example:

Data Sources on Household Income
Information on household income for this analysis came
from two primary sources: the Internal Revenue Service’s
Statistics of Income (SOI) and the Census Bureau’s
Current Population Survey (CPS). The core data came
from the SOI, a nationally representative sample of
individual income tax returns. The number of returns
sampled grew over the time period studied, ranging
from roughly 90,000 in some of the early years to more
than 300,000 in the later years. CBO used the full Individual
Income Tax file, which is more detailed than the
public-use version of the file. The agency supplemented
those data with data from the CPS’s Annual Social
and Economic Supplement; those data identify demographic
characteristics and income for a large sample of
households.
Both the SOI and the CPS lack important information
needed for estimating and comparing after-tax household
income over time. The SOI does not include information
about people who do not file federal tax returns, and it
does not report all income from government cash transfer
programs. It also offers no information on the receipt of
in-kind transfers and benefits, and it is organized by tax
filing units rather than by households. The CPS lacks
detailed information on high-income households, it does
not report capital gains, it underreports other income
from capital, and it lacks information on the deductions
and adjustments necessary to compute taxes.
Together, however, the two sources can form a more
complete picture. To overcome limitations in each source
of data, CBO statistically matched SOI records to corresponding
CPS records on the basis of demographic
characteristics and income. Each pairing resulted in a
new record that took on the demographic characteristics
of the CPS record and the income reported in the SOI.
(Some types of income—certain transfers and in-kind
benefits, for example—appear only in the CPS; their values
were drawn directly from that survey.) Because some
households are not required to file tax returns, the SOI
does not have data on every household in the nation.
To create a sample that was representative of the entire
population, once all SOI records were matched to CPS
records, the remaining CPS records were recorded as
nonfiling households and their income values were
taken directly from the CPS.

Good. Thanks. So that means that the income taxes paid were based on a sample of about 0.3% to 1% of all US tax filings, and that the taxes paid by the richest 1% were based upon samples of between 900 to 2500 filers, depending on year.

So then, how about the fact that wealthier people hide a greater % of their income from the government and thus their filings will more greatly overestimate the % of their income paid in taxes. What % of the poor and middle class have secret Swiss Bank accounts, etc., compared to the wealthiest 1%?

I'm not sure how whatever point you are trying to make changes the import of this analysis. These are numbers about who pays taxes, not who doesn't.

I'm not sure how anything you are asserting or implying would change the general conclusions that the bottom 3 quintiles receive more in cash than they pay in, and that the 2nd highest quintile barely covers itself.

 

[ksen]

You could read the report that was linked. It addresses these mysteries. For example:

Data Sources on Household Income
Information on household income for this analysis came
from two primary sources: the Internal Revenue Service’s
Statistics of Income (SOI) and the Census Bureau’s
Current Population Survey (CPS). The core data came
from the SOI, a nationally representative sample of
individual income tax returns. The number of returns
sampled grew over the time period studied, ranging
from roughly 90,000 in some of the early years to more
than 300,000 in the later years. CBO used the full Individual
Income Tax file, which is more detailed than the
public-use version of the file. The agency supplemented
those data with data from the CPS’s Annual Social
and Economic Supplement; those data identify demographic
characteristics and income for a large sample of
households.
Both the SOI and the CPS lack important information
needed for estimating and comparing after-tax household
income over time. The SOI does not include information
about people who do not file federal tax returns, and it
does not report all income from government cash transfer
programs. It also offers no information on the receipt of
in-kind transfers and benefits, and it is organized by tax
filing units rather than by households. The CPS lacks
detailed information on high-income households, it does
not report capital gains, it underreports other income
from capital, and it lacks information on the deductions
and adjustments necessary to compute taxes.
Together, however, the two sources can form a more
complete picture. To overcome limitations in each source
of data, CBO statistically matched SOI records to corresponding
CPS records on the basis of demographic
characteristics and income. Each pairing resulted in a
new record that took on the demographic characteristics
of the CPS record and the income reported in the SOI.
(Some types of income—certain transfers and in-kind
benefits, for example—appear only in the CPS; their values
were drawn directly from that survey.) Because some
households are not required to file tax returns, the SOI
does not have data on every household in the nation.
To create a sample that was representative of the entire
population, once all SOI records were matched to CPS
records, the remaining CPS records were recorded as
nonfiling households and their income values were
taken directly from the CPS.

Good. Thanks. So that means that the income taxes paid were based on a sample of about 0.3% to 1% of all US tax filings, and that the taxes paid by the richest 1% were based upon samples of between 900 to 2500 filers, depending on year.

So then, how about the fact that wealthier people hide a greater % of their income from the government and thus their filings will more greatly overestimate the % of their income paid in taxes. What % of the poor and middle class have secret Swiss Bank accounts, etc., compared to the wealthiest 1%?

I'm not sure how whatever point you are trying to make changes the import of this analysis. These are numbers about who pays taxes, not who doesn't.

I'm not sure how anything you are asserting or implying would change the general conclusions that the bottom 3 quintiles receive more in cash than they pay in, and that the 2nd highest quintile barely covers itself.

Sounds to me like somebody does care about who is not paying income taxes.

 

[maxparrish]

I skimmed through the thread to check that the following criticism had not already been made.

This is a pretty magnificent example of Macbeth's "Fiend that Lies like Truth."

The problem with this chart is that it mixes the actual undertaxed oligarchs, the centimillionaires and billionaires, AKA the 1% and the 0.1%, in the same pot as the rest of the well-off professionals: doctors, lawyers and upper managers, all in the top 25%.

Were those categories broken out from the top quintile, what one would see is a flattening and reversal of of the percentage of income paid in taxes as incomes increase up above $250,000, especially prior to the blunting of the Bush Tax cuts when Dividend income was tax free. At that point, the only effective tax on income would be Capital Gains, so one would see cases like Warren Buffet getting an effective tax rate of 11% for the period under discussion compared to a Doctor or Lawyer at $250,000 paying 18.9%.

And this is before one takes into account the overspending the government makes towards private contractors like Haliburton, the ownership of which is tilted to the uppermost echelons of the income distribution and the absurd capital gains for which are not counted as "transfers".

Shame on you, Axulus, for either expecting us not to be aware of these major caveats to your misleading chart or for being sufficiently blind and stupid to have accepted the argument you are making at face value after getting it from some right-wing hack rag.

Thanks, Duke. I didn't have the patience and courtesy to point out the obvious to an obvious scammer.

Fortuitously, Duke and Joedad, I do. The problem with criticizing a chart based a claim of Shakespearean failure to honor truth is that someone might also check the literary accuser. The "undertaxed oligarchs" (your 1%) does not "flatten out and reverse" at 1 percent. It might at .1, .01, or .001 percent, but NOT for the top one percent.

So then, who is actually being "sufficiently blind and stupid" to invent a spurious aggregation as if it was written by a left-wing hack?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Good. Thanks. So that means that the income taxes paid were based on a sample of about 0.3% to 1% of all US tax filings, and that the taxes paid by the richest 1% were based upon samples of between 900 to 2500 filers, depending on year.

Large enough samples to get reasonable data.

So then, how about the fact that wealthier people hide a greater % of their income from the government and thus their filings will more greatly overestimate the % of their income paid in taxes. What % of the poor and middle class have secret Swiss Bank accounts, etc., compared to the wealthiest 1%?

You realize secret Swiss accounts are things of the past?

 

[bilby]

Large enough samples to get reasonable data.

So then, how about the fact that wealthier people hide a greater % of their income from the government and thus their filings will more greatly overestimate the % of their income paid in taxes. What % of the poor and middle class have secret Swiss Bank accounts, etc., compared to the wealthiest 1%?

You realize secret Swiss accounts are things of the past?

Are they? Or are they just even more secret than before?? /tinfoilhat

 

[ronburgundy]

Large enough samples to get reasonable data.

Agreed, but only presuming completely random and blind sampling methods.

So then, how about the fact that wealthier people hide a greater % of their income from the government and thus their filings will more greatly overestimate the % of their income paid in taxes. What % of the poor and middle class have secret Swiss Bank accounts, etc., compared to the wealthiest 1%?

You realize secret Swiss accounts are things of the past?

You do realize that the change in the secrecy in these accounts only occurred in Jan 2014 and thus that change has no relevance to any of the CBO data in question?
You do also realize that there are many other ways by which the rich hide their wealth?

 

[Derec]

Let's not forget that we are slightly above average as a percent of GDP, but our GDP per capita is much higher than most of Europe. 30% higher than France, for example.

Then why do we seem to get so much less bang for our buck? For example roads in Germany are much better with few potholes or these steel slabs you see around here all the time. And that is with all the extra investment Germany puts into public transportation - much better coverage, more modern fleet etc.
Or take power. Most local power lines are buried there which means very few outages.
I know part of the reason is smaller population density but in Atlanta metro we have power lines strung between timbers even within built-up areas. Also many potholes and crappy public transport.

 

[Derec]

What confuses me is that according to this, I don't pay taxes, barely (almost in the next quintile). Last time I checked, I do pay Federal taxes and don't get any "government transfer".

Do you have kids or other dependents? They make a huge difference in amount of taxes owed, between exemptions, child tax credit and the EITC, latter two being refundable so you can actually owe negative federal tax (your tax refund is higher than your withholdings). But if you are a single guy with no kids, forgettaboutit! You will have to pay significant federal income tax even in the lowest quintile.