This is my first attempt at this so please blast me to keep me in line. If this subject has been covered before I'm sorry but I was asked so I thought I'd see what you thought.
I was watching a video today of a debate between Rep.Ginny Brown-Waite and John Russell from Florida about taxes from 2008. My seventeen year old daughter was in the kitchen making some bean soup, when she asked; why do I have to pay taxes being a minor and unable to vote. She said "isn’t that taxation without representation"? I thought about it for a few moments and I have to agree she’s right.
My daughter has just graduated from high school and is attending a fairly prestigious university in the Midwest in the fall. She started working full time in the summers as a babysitter when she was fourteen; she did not pay taxes on this income, but she saved a large percentage of it for college (this turned out very shrewd as you will see). When she turned sixteen and got her license she was required to get a job to pay for gas and maintenance to drive my wife’s old car. She saved a large percentage of this money as well; that turned out to be a blessing because in February of this year I got laid off from the distillery I had worked at for 12 years that produced industrial alcohol, vodka, gin and fuel grade ethanol. She is paying for college pretty much by herself through some scholarships, her saved money, a little help from us and her first loan as an adult for ten thousand dollars.
I guess what I am asking is; if you are under 18, should you be paying taxes on income. What are your thoughts? You can see from my writing skills that she took after her mom.