If I don't have kids, shouldn't I pay lower taxes since I shouldn't have to fund schools?

Isn't it socialist to force me to pay for a government service that I won't use?

In a lot of places in the U.S., it's the property taxes that support the schools, or perhaps the state income tax. So, if you don't want to be saddled with a higher (property) tax bill, don't choose to live in a district with relatively high funding for schools. You'll probably save on housing cost as well as taxes as a result.

When it comes to income taxes, the Congress may have wanted to give taxpayers a break, recognizing that if you have children, your cost of living (not only housing, but basic costs like eating and buying clothes) is higher, so it takes more income to have a standard of living similar to those without children. So, if you have children (and personal exemptions for dependents, and perhaps a head of household burden in a one-parent household), you are able to earn more before paying the same taxes as someone without children.

Taxes also serve social policy objectives (e.g., deductions for charitable donations), and there are numerous tax code provisions designed to promote traditional marriage [like joint return filing status], homeownership [deduction of mortgage interest, which is "personal" like non-deductible credit card debt] and families [various credits, personal exemption, etc.].

Congress may also have realized that many of their voter constituents are parents, and that they are more likely to be re-elected if they give parents and/or homeowners a tax break. But this is the cynical interpretation.

Most of us don't use a wide variety of services the government provides. It's income redistribution, but I'm not sure that's socialism. In a more pure form of socialism, you don't have income connected to your personal production -- selling your services for a wage is capitalism, not socialism. You could also object to the fact that highly compensated people pay a higher percentage of their income in tax. It may or may not be fair, and it may or may not be economically efficient, but it's still a democratic system (laws enacted by people we allow to hold office) and it's still capitalistic to sell your labor and own your property.

There's a classic book in economics by Walter J Blum and Harry Kalven, Jr., The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation (1953), and there's a modern legal/economic book by Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law, that goes into a lot of questions that come from applying economic reasoning and research to legal policies, including tax policy.

I hope you enjoy reading!

So it won't affect your life if you have bands of uneducated, hopeless kids wandering your neighborhood? Even if you don't care about them or about the future of the country, you might want to contribute out of enlightened self-interest.

Should people who don't drive be able to subtract a large amount of money from their taxes for building roads and having street signs and police to enforce rules of the road?

who says you'll NEVER use them. you went to school, didn't you. public schools are free, and very underfunded. teacher pay is very low, and schools staff many more people than just teachers. it takes a village to raise a child and you, my dear, are a villager.

So when parents send their kids to school, it is only them who benefit?! Of course you should pay. You would soon be complaining if everyone around you were uneducated. Is this a serious question?!

If I have to pay for this f*cking war, and get no say about that, & no discount because I am adamantly opposed to it's implementation, strategy & tactics... than you should have to pay for some government funded daycare shoving propaganda down kid's throats.. .'cause that's only fair.

Someone paid for your schooling. And for the people who wrote "schools are underfunded" come on they receive more money than the war and with tenure and other craziness teachers do not have to perform. Yes we have to pay but the education system is socialist it should be open to competition and everyone should choose how and where their child is educated. If you can't produce, noone comes to learn and you loose business.

You get benefit, even if it's indirect. The firefighter who puts out the fire when lightning strikes your home was educated by the school system. Or would you rather that a band of uneducated neanderthals come rescue you? How about the same band armed with guns and wearing police uniforms? Or how about the doctor that sews your sorry @$$ back together after you go through the windshield when not wearing a seatbelt?

i would like to think that the taxes are used to BETTER AS AS A WHOLE SOCIETY.......not just on the individual level.

ah, be quiet and pay the damn things

I'm not on medicare, but I pay a medicare tax. I'm not on social security, but I pay a social security tax. I have NO idea where my federal or state taxes go, but I still pay them. Just because you aren't going to use them doesn't mean you get out of paying it. Not everyone can afford to send their child to private school, which is why we have to pay the school tax. America doesn't want our children to be completely uneducated because their parents are poor...in short...suck it up and deal with it, it's a part of life, and something you are never going to get out of.

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