Policy · Federal budget
Civic Government Form
You paid taxes. Here's the itemized receipt.
A $75,000 single filer paid about $8,341 in federal income tax in 2024. Split by what the government actually spent, here is the line-by-line receipt.
The finding
For a $75,000 single filer who paid about $8,341 in federal income tax in 2024, net interest on the debt (13.1% of spending) now costs more than national defense (12.9%).
The breakdown
- 1The estimate is simple. $75,000 minus the 2024 single standard deduction of $14,600 leaves $60,400 taxable. Run it through the brackets and you get $8,341. That's an 11.1% effective rate on income tax alone, before payroll, state, or sales tax.
- 2I split that $8,341 the way the federal government split every dollar it spent in FY2024. Shares come straight from the Treasury's year-end statement: Social Security 21.6%, health programs 13.5%, net interest 13.1%, Medicare 12.9%, defense 12.9%.
- 3The headline is net interest. At 13.1% of spending it just passed national defense. Of your $8,341, about $1,089 went to interest on past borrowing and got you nothing new. Four years ago that line was half the size.
- 4This is a proportional allocation, not tax advice, and 2024 ran a $1.8T deficit, so a year's spending isn't funded only by a year's taxes. Still, it's the closest thing to a receipt the government will ever hand you. Which line would you cut first?
How it's built
- 1Estimate the tax: $75,000 gross minus the 2024 single standard deduction of $14,600 is $60,400 taxable. Apply the 2024 single brackets (10/12/22%) to get $8,341.
- 2Pull FY2024 net outlays by budget function from the Treasury Final Monthly Treasury Statement (Sep 2024, Table 9).
- 3Compute each function's share of total net outlays ($6,751,552 million).
- 4Allocate the $8,341 by those shares to build the receipt. Bundle the small functions into one 'Everything else' line.
- 5This is a proportional split of one filer's income tax across all federal spending, not a trace of where those specific dollars went.
Sources
Caveats
- —Proportional allocation, not a literal trace. Your tax did not fund these specific programs. The receipt splits your income tax the way total federal spending was split.
- —Income tax only. This ignores payroll (Social Security and Medicare) taxes, state and local taxes, and tax credits, which change what people actually owe.
- —FY2024 ran a roughly $1.8 trillion deficit, so a year's outlays are not funded only by a year's taxes. Borrowed dollars are on the receipt too.
- —Shares use net outlays by function, so undistributed offsetting receipts (a negative line) are netted into the total. Health and Medicare are shown separately; together they are about 26% of spending.
- —Not tax advice. A real return depends on credits, other income, and filing details. $8,341 is a clean standard-deduction estimate, not a guarantee.
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