Tracking How the Feds Spent Your Money

Tax (Photo credit: 401K)

Ever wonder how your federal tax dollars are spent?  The White House launched a new tax tool – the 2011 Federal Taxpayer Receipt – which shows how individual tax payments are allocated among various national priorities.  A family with two children earning $80,000, for example, pays about $4,590 per year in federal income taxes, along with $3,360 in Social Security taxes and $1,160 in Medicare taxes. Of that, about $1,140 goes to support spending on national defense, nearly $1,100 is dedicated to federal health care programs and about $200 is spent on veterans’ benefits. Out of that family’s total income tax burden, 8.1 percent or about $340 goes to pay interest on the national debt.