I became more aware of how much tax I was paying when I became self employed because instead of paying a bit out of each check like a w2 worker I have to pay it in lump sums quarterly.
I run a low overhead medical practice so I don’t have a tax cheat llc, I take the standard deduction every year and as a result my taxes are pretty much the same as they ever were. Even though it’s roughly the same amount (slightly more actually, now that I cut out the overhead of medical systems stealing 30-60% of my labor) there’s something psychological about paying the amount in a lump sum
I think paying taxes is important and I want to do. However I feel conflicted about spending this money because what I feel paying taxes are important for are generally not what my tax dollars fund, and increasingly so. I want to pay and gladly will for community enrichment, better public schools, access to healthcare, infrastructure like roads, power lines, sewers, moving away from fossil fuels, better handling of trash and recycling programs, rehabilitation programs for criminal offenders, mental health programs including interim programs like community supports and mobile programs that exist in between outpatient and inpatient, social welfare programs that give people access to housing, food, electricity, etc
But instead my taxes pay for these things increasingly less. About 20% of my taxes go to military and defensive spending and while I do think some amount needs to go to this I think it’s absurd. Most countries spend 3-5% on defensive spending. Even China, the second highest after the US, spends 6%.
So I don’t resent paying taxes but I do resent how much when roughly 1/5th of that goes to defense contractors to launder billions from taxpayer and Israel for genocide. I also resent that my tax burden continually increases despite making roughly $60-70k a year while the services around me continually decrease.
In addition to this I didn’t even touch upon the resentment towards stupid bullshit outside of defense
Like I like in Pennsylvania and the amount of tax dollars that are spent propping up fossil fuel industries. Like I want to spend money on developing energy infrastructure, of course. But I want that money to go into putting power lines underground (my power goes out every six weeks minimum and 2-3x a year for over 24hours, sometimes over 72), nuclear, solar, hydroelectric, etc
But what do I get? Fracking, propping up the coal industry, etc. fucking ridiculous.
Road quality decreases and yet no public transportation expansion. It’s garbage if you have a car and if you don’t it’s impossible if you’re outside of a city.
So that stuff too