Article: 47% Owe No Taxes

[jIM_Ohio]

My DH and I were part of the 47% who paid no income tax this year.
I kept asking our accountant if there wasn't a mistake. He said no, he was absolutley sure we didn't owe anything. I had about $6,500 withheld - we got it all back in a refund.

I make $60,000. DH is self-employed. His income washed with his expenses.

We had a several "pre-tax" expenses - my 401K contribution of about $6,000, pre-tax medical ("Flex Account") of $3,500, medical insurance of about $10,000. Then we got deductions for our mortgage interest and charitable contributions, as well as a credit for our college son's tuition.

As much as I like having the money for ourselves, I really think there is something very wrong with this scenario. Granted, we paid Medicare and Social Security. But we didn't pay a nickel for the military that protects us, the roads and other transportation infastructure that gets us from place to place, or any other government agency that benefits my family directly or indirectly.

How is this happening? We are obviously not impoverished and have the capability to pay.

This is common among the middle class. We are almost in this situation too, except our deductions come from paying 40k+ in mortgage interest per year, which more than offsets most of the tax liabilty we have on our 100k+ income (combined).