Prager U: Where Does the Federal Government Get All That Money?

PragerU and Information Station team-up for the new educational short “Where Does the Federal Government Get All That Money?” The video breaks down the individual income tax and how much the government is taking from the taxpayer.

“Every year the U.S. federal government collects more than $3 trillion in taxes, and almost half of that comes from you and me, the individual income taxpayers,” the narrator explains. “These are the taxes that come out of your paycheck or maybe you pay quarterly. Either way… it’s a lot of money, so it’s worth learning more about!”

The video breaks down five little known facts about the federal income tax.

“Number one: The individual income tax has been the largest source of federal government revenue since 1950… accounting for 47.3 percent of revenue in 2016.”

That is a large chunk of the bill that taxpayers are covering for government programs.

“Number two: While the name ‘individual income tax’ implies that only individual Americans pay the tax, many small businesses are subject to it as well. A majority of small businesses are set up as ‘pass-through’ entities, which means that business profits are included on the owner’s individual tax sheet and is thus taxed at the individual rate which is higher than the rates big corporations pay.”

Citing 2016 data, the narrator notes that “44 percent of Americans, or roughly 77 million people, don’t pay any federal income taxes at all.”

Then there’s all the wasted time and money on simply filling out and paying tax returns. “A combined 2.6 billion man hours is spent every year filling out tax returns. That’s an average of 17 hours per American tax filer.”

Taxes should be easy to file, not complicated to the point of taking almost twice an average work day to complete.

“And lastly number five: According to the most recent data from the Tax Foundation, the top one percent of taxpayers contribute roughly 40 percent of all federal income taxes collected.”

The narrator goes on to explain that the bottom 50 percent pay less than 3 percent of total tax revenues, which destroys the Left’s notion that the top earners aren’t paying their “fair share.”

Watch the video below: