the taxes tend to uh keep going up but
uh i don't know if it helps me any to look at some of the other countries and say well there's always someone that's that's worse off in what they end up paying
but uh go ahead
i think i think we're always convinced that we're paying too much in taxes
without getting back necessarily everything we'd like to but so far
i don't think i've paid enough taxes to be too too awfully concerned about it yet
yeah i'm still still i'm able to survive and
and uh working for a company that reaps some benefits from the tax money it's almost like you're paying your own salary i don't work directly for the government but uh getting government contracts and
being in the defense industry as it were even realize a little slim these days it's still uh
yes
still a feeling of you know it's not totally wasted dollars if you think about it some of it coming back your way
right
uh that helps the rationale any but it's still angering to see the abuses uh even though they're uh
a relatively small percentage they still they sound humongous when they're you know you hear millions and sometimes billions of dollars spent and
and even some of the arguments over the national endowment for the arts and what's happening in that area it's still a pretty small chunk considering what actually flows through that government
so but those are the things that get us going or get us stirred up sometimes
people
right
desire that that money not be spent well
do you all pay state income tax
no no Texas doesn't have a state income tax yet that's
neither do we and and and i agree with the yet part they've just started talking about introducing a state income tax
and right now we pay an extremely high state uh sales tax almost eight percent
well by the time the city gets involved i'm not sure how many how many people have their hand in it but we pay eight and a quarter cent
wow
so it's it's pretty pretty much but i think it's divvied up pretty much too uh the county gets some the city gets some and the state gets some
right
and it's it's quite a bit i think six something is the state and and uh the rest of the pie goes elsewhere
but we're in a particular part of the state that's pretty well off so it's it's like we get a lot of that back as far as local taxation goes
well that's good
yeah we have a real good you know police department and real good uh city services and boy the parks are all over the place and there's a lot of
lot of money spent on us but uh the poor rural folks uh barely can get ambulance service and everything else so it's
it's a real mixed blessing i guess to
that's i think that's the biggest problem i have with the tax system is there there is such a disparity between between really the haves and the have nots
and i i think the things that they use as a basis for distributing back the tax dollars needs to be looked at again
yeah it'd be nice if you could find someone
oh
uninfluenced by groups and and honest enough to find a way that would go over and then you'd have to find a way to make it work
i know that would be a a definite B V R M I R
yeah yeah
the uh bureaucracy seems to spend
more money just trying to administer some of these programs than the programs are worth uh it seems uh
an awful waste of time to have so many people having to fill out so much paper just to get rid of so few dollars in some of these cases
i think a lot a lot of times it seems like the classic can't see the forest for the trees i i wonder if if they realize
so it make
the the magnitude of some of the red tape you have to go through
yeah
and so much of that red tape was was initially and is added on
to try and stop a given abuse you know you discover a particular problem and say well we ought to run this extra check and we'll have to file these extra papers to say well you you deserve this welfare or whatever
and they just keep trying to to
close all the loopholes and stop the abuse and all they're doing is making it worse and having to add more staff and
and uh decreasing the efficiency of those who are actually trying to stop the abuse
and i don't i don't think they're getting their money's worth and i i i definitely don't think that the added
steps are are getting the benefit that they would like them to i think it's just causing most everyone else more problems because if somebody wants to get around the tax laws
they will find a way
um-hum
if they want to badly enough they'll either find it themselves or they'll find someone to do it for them
right
it does seem to be the case
i don't know whether it's worth and the economy has gone pretty well for a
hundred years or so with the government doing what they do with taxes steering investments and steering virtually every
dollar you make or spend it gets uh
steered one way or the other based on tax breaks you get and you know housing had tax breaks for a while and then they slacked off on that for a while and then
just uh generally wanting to be in control of of where everything's going for the most part give you the best break if you go their direction
i don't know what what would happen if we
uh got rid of some of those controls and just went to what some people would say would be simpler of just having uh you spend this much
uh therefore you should be taxed this much that would only encourage saving it's not a
you know a tax your income because now you're talking about having to report it and all that kind of stuff
right
but if you put the burden on
the retailer who really doesn't care if you you know buy your groceries and the like he doesn't care who bought the groceries you're going to pay the tax on it
so most people tend to spend what they make anyway in in our income income brackets
right
so you know those fifty thousand dollars or the thirty thousand dollars would
pretty much spend the majority of it and what they didn't save they wouldn't or what they could could save they wouldn't get taxed on
and that makes sense but like you said i mean it it seems simple and i think in a way it's so simple that people would be afraid to try it
yeah but you wouldn't be able to steer people toward
a particular type of savings you wouldn't be able to say well you get better tax bonds if you you know
avoid the capital gains tax and if you do it this way do this and you roll over your IRA's and all that they
yeah
you wouldn't be able to steer people toward retirement and all that but boy if you save that much money
and it didn't have the taxation problem well you might
might do all right i don't know it seems
yeah even if you didn't invest in necessarily the the best thing you would have so much more to invest
you you'd still be ahead
yeah
that's for sure
and that's something that's something i need to to learn a lot more about is is
under the current structure what is the best thing to be investing in for the future
because that's a that's a scary thought you always hear that Social Security won't be around by the time
we're sixty three or sixty five and and need it and that's a scary thought
right
that's true plus what what there will be of it even if it's there isn't quite enough anyway so
no
you're looking at having to do it on your own for the most part and then hope what you did didn't go away
yeah the uh
the taxes are are
kind of messed up i guess with the abuses and the things we've written into it but uh looking looking at some of the other countries and some of the other options you have in the world there
it's not all that pleasant anywhere
we still look pretty good don't we
yeah pretty much
well i hear one of my kiddos doing something they shouldn't be so i'll uh let you go and maybe
okay
it's been nice talking to you
maybe maybe we'll catch each other again
okay have a good evening
i'll try bye
thanks bye-bye
