Check to See How Your Federal Tax Dollars Are Spent

Earlier this week, WhiteHouse.gov unveiled their newest page - "Your Federal Taxpayer Receipt".

According to a blog posting titled "Your Taxpayer Receipt" (link below), Katelyn Sabochik revealed that WhiteHouse.gov was making good on this promise:

"In his State of the Union Address, President Obama promised that this year, for the first time ever, American taxpayers would be able to go online and see exactly how their federal tax dollars are spent."

The result? Your Federal Taxpayer Receipt.

Simply enter the total $ that you spent on Social Security Tax, Medicare Tax and Income Tax in 2010, and the page will spit out exactly how these dollars were spent last year. If you don't have these numbers handy, then you can choose an income level and the page will return some approximate numbers.

For instance, if you select $80,000 income - married with no children, you will be able to easily see where your $9,983 in total income and payroll taxes were spent last year.

For instance, if a person paid $3,863.00 in federal income taxes in 2010, then $1,015.97 (or 26.3%) of this amount would have gone towards national defense spending. The site also breaks down the spending in his category even further - for instance, of the $1,015.97 that was spent on national defense spending, $405.92 would have gone towards "Ongoing operations, equipment, and supplies", while an additional $339.94 would have gone towards "Research, Development, Weapons and Construction".

According to WhiteHouse.gov, the top five categories of spending by % of total income tax payment last year were:

National Defense - 26.3%
Health Care - 24.3%
Job and Family Security - 21.9%
Net Interest - 7.4%
Education and Job Training - 4.8%

If you paid $3,863 in federal income taxes last year, then $285.86 of this amount would have gone towards the net interest on the national debt.

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Source: WhiteHouse.gov - Your Taxpayer Receipt

Filed under: General Knowledge