>I would like taxes to be due about 4 Tuesdays before the Election Day Tuesday.
Most people pay taxes in small increments every 2 weeks then get a refund around tax day, so your plan may not do what you think.
>I do want people to recognize that taxes and spending are linked
To your own point, they really aren't. [0]
>But do it with recent memory of having paid your taxes (assuming you are in the slight majority* who pay federal taxes on net)
To add some color on this [1]:
But, for the most part, people don’t pay income tax because they have little income. About 60 percent of non-payers make less than $30,000 and another 28 percent make between $30,000 and about $60,000.
Of the 72 million households that will pay no federal income tax this year, about 24 million, or roughly one-third, are age 65 or older.
Oh, right. I did skip stating an important step in the plan [so, upvoted]. I would do away with the withholding scheme (perhaps creating a parallel savings mechanism) and force income earners to write a check/do an ACH for their taxes.
Under that system, I'm totally fine if people get a $1K refund after writing a check for $15K in taxes withheld. That would still demonstrate the linkage sufficiently to inform their voting choices.
Sure, but again to your own point, the share of voting Americans who don't earn income (and therefore pay no taxes) because they are over 65 is already 1/3 and only going to increase.[0]
There will always be zero tax payers with the right to vote.
That's OK, especially since most of those who are now over 65 and retired worked and voted on reps/platforms/policies from 18-65 and earned income/paid taxes for probably ~40 of those years.
>I would like taxes to be due about 4 Tuesdays before the Election Day Tuesday.
Most people pay taxes in small increments every 2 weeks then get a refund around tax day, so your plan may not do what you think.
>I do want people to recognize that taxes and spending are linked
To your own point, they really aren't. [0]
>But do it with recent memory of having paid your taxes (assuming you are in the slight majority* who pay federal taxes on net)
To add some color on this [1]:
But, for the most part, people don’t pay income tax because they have little income. About 60 percent of non-payers make less than $30,000 and another 28 percent make between $30,000 and about $60,000.
Of the 72 million households that will pay no federal income tax this year, about 24 million, or roughly one-third, are age 65 or older.
[0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17dyP [1]https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tpc-number-those-who-...