Each time the Powerball jackpot gets big, the legacy media get worked up into a frenzy publicizing it. Wouldn’t it be nice to win half of every one of those jackpots? One government agency actually does that, and it doesn’t need luck. No matter who wins the jackpot, the Internal Revenue Service is guaranteed to win half!

The IRS takes 50% of each Powerball jackpot (and all other jackpots) in taxes. So, we can mentally cut those jackpot amounts in half every time we see one when it comes to how much we actually would get to keep. This is an interesting footnote to the record Powerball jackpot of over $1.5 billion we saw discussed ad nauseum in legacy media.

Even if we aren’t a lucky lottery winner, our friends at the IRS and other government agencies still take 40-50% of our income if we add everything up:

FICA

Social Security (soon to be insolvent because the money paid into the system was put into the general fund instead of saved for people’s retirement)

Medicare

State Income Taxes

Local Income Taxes

Use Taxes

Gasoline taxes

Sales taxes

Food taxes

Lodging taxes

Restaurant taxes

Licensing

Property taxes (home, land)

Personal property taxes (car, boat)

And now – Obamacare “shared responsibility” payments – under the umbrella of the friendly IRS

That’s a crushing tax bill. But they’re not done with us, there have been recent proposals to tax everything from soda to salt.

A full 70% of income tax revenue supports some sort of socialist wealth redistribution scheme of one type or the other. So, it doesn’t support roads as much as it supports taking money from people who work and giving to those that don’t. The progressive income tax system in the United States conforms to one of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto.

Imagine if the average person had to pay their tax bill ($5,000 to $7,500 on a median salary) in one lump sum each April instead of having it taken out of their checks in bite-size portions weekly or bi-weekly. There would be rioting in the streets! That’s why we have to admire the clever tactics of our “public servants” in setting up the system. They designed an income tax system in which small overpayments result in a flamboyant Thomas Sowell-esque “tax refund” each year. In reality, they are just giving us our change back. In that regard the tax system, outrageous as it may be is a marvel of con artistry.

But these amounts are drops in the bucket when compared to the half of all lottery jackpot winnings. What luck!

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