Taxes

Taxes

In today’s world, the majority of our government’s income comes from taxation. Taxes are required payments of money to various local, states, and federal governments, and they are used to provide public goods and services to benefit our communities. The government uses the income it receives from the taxpayers to provide us with proper infrastructure and social services for little or no cost at all. These services include Medicare, Social Security, education, highways and road maintenance, defense, justice system, police, etc. Taxes also fund programs and services that benefit only certain citizens, such as health, welfare, and social services. In many third world countries where taxation is low or does not exist, all of these services come out of one’s pocket, unlike the United States where these services are granted to us at no cost.

Two types of local taxes are property tax and county tax. The types of property covered under property taxes are houses, buildings, acreage, boats, etc. The property tax rates are set by local government and the calculated assessed value is determined by the local assessor’s office. In Indiana, the local assessor’s office is located in each township. Property tax rates are recalculated each year by dividing the levy by the assessed value. The result is multiplied by 100 and shown as dollars per $100 assessed value and the figure shown is essentially a percentage. The rate is multiplied by the assessed value owned by each taxpayer to calculate the taxpayer's liability.

County tax is the sum of the rates of the local government in which his or her property is located. All taxpayers pay a county rate, a township rate, and a school corporation rate. Some counties also distribute a portion of an individual’s property tax toward airports and libraries located in the county. There are also rates for other special districts, such as solid waste management districts, transportation districts or fire protection districts. Taxpayers receive one combined tax bill from the County Treasurer, and make one payment for all the local units. The county divides the revenue among the local units. In Porter County, the tax rate is .0025%, Lake County does not levy a county tax, and the LaPorte County tax rate is .0095%. The other Indiana county tax rates range from no tax to .015%.

State taxes are used to maintain state highways, to operate state police departments, and to run state governments. In Indiana, taxpayers pay a flat rate of 3.4% on their state income taxes. Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming have no state income tax. Most other states have a high and low tax rate range. Another form of state tax is the state sales tax. Indiana’s tax rate is 6% on purchases in the state. Other states have tax rates ranging from 2.9% to 7.25%. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon do not charge a state sales tax.

The federal income tax is a progressive tax. There is a higher tax rate on higher incomes than there is on lower incomes. The federal income tax provides for national programs such as defense, foreign