I'm just saying

I do not know about why for sure, except excessive spending by the government, but I can tell you how. How is by the power of automatic deduction, money we never see. Imagine this, if I paid you your gross salary in cash. As soon as you receive it, you go to a window and shell out federal taxes, then another window for state taxes, another for local. Then you can go by the Social Security and Medicare window. Think about how powerful the automatic deduction is. If we had to pay taxes that way, there would be rebellion in the streets.

 

Yes, I believe SN has a point. If people had to write out checks for their taxes on a payroll basis, there would be revolt.

Furthermore, one of the truly onerous things about the federal withholding tax, and then Social Security, and then Medicare, is that the government tasked the job of collecting this tax on employers. This is truly a burdensome mandate. The employer is essentially doing a job for the federal government and not getting paid for it. In fact, they are getting taxed for doing the government's job!