Eli5: Why do we tax public sector wages?

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I’m in the UK but I’m sure the logic around much of the world is the same. It seems like an incredibly bureaucratic waste of money to tax public sector wages, rather than just pay the workers upfront what they would get post-tax. I might be missing something though, so hope someone on here might enlighten me if I am!

In: Economics

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There is no way for the government to know what tax exemptions you qualify for ahead of time. As such they cannot simply pay you what you would get without taxes. In the US you also owe taxes at the State, County, and sometimes City levels and so have to pay that as well. I assume it would be similar in the UK.

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