The Doc Is In

Australia and New Zealand are countries known to be previously ruled by the British colony so it is no wonder their flags are quite similar in several ways. But still, there are subtle differences if one will just look closely.

(Australia Flag )

The Australian flag has what they call Commonwealth Star which for all people in the know is a very important part of the Australian flag. Why? Because this six pointed star epitomizes the six founding states in addition to Australian territories. This can be found under the Union Jack. Furthermore, the Southern Cross in the Australian flag has four seven pointed stars and one with five.

Image via Wikipedia

Difference between Australia and New Zealand Flag

While the Australian flag has the Commonwealth Star, the New Zealand flag does not because it is a symbol of Australia.

The Australian’s flag’s Southern Cross has four seven pointed stars and one with five; the New Zealand flag has only four five pointed stars.

The Australian flag has the Southern Cross with white; the New Zealand flag has its’ Southern Cross colored with red and white borders.

So as similar as these two countries’ flags may look like, there are still differences. And they are very subtle at that. So if you are not very detail-oriented, you can miss it.

Source: HERE

Image by 401K via Flickr

Ask most Americans how much they pay in taxes, and they’ll probably refer to their tax bracket, a series of rates that ranges from 10% to 35%…..Under the United States’ progressive tax system, income is taxed at graduated rates. An individual’s tax bracket, sometimes referred to as the marginal tax rate, refers to the percentage of income that’s taxed at the top tax rate — not the rate for the entire amount.

The effective tax rate, meanwhile, is the amount a taxpayer pays in taxes as a percentage of total income. The average effective federal tax rate for American taxpayers is 11%, according to an analysis of 2009 IRS data by the Tax Foundation, a non-profit research organization. For individuals with adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less, the average effective tax rate is less than 5%, according to the Tax Foundation.

That rate doesn’t include the amount taxpayers pay in Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Confusion about the difference between marginal and effective tax rates often causes taxpayers to overestimate their tax liabilities, tax professionals say.

 What we pay

Average effective tax rate for U.S. taxpayers, based on adjusted gross income:
	Avg. tax rate
All returns, total	11%
$50,000 – $74,999	7%
$75,000 – $99,999	8%
$100,000 – $199,999	12%
$200,000 – $499,999	19%
$500,000 – $1,000,000	24%
Summary for $1 million+	25%
Source: Tax Foundation

Source: HERE

My humble little blog isn’t even close to the “Big Boys” but nevertheless it was a “hoot” sharing posts with you! Thank you for visiting and contributing!

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year.  This blog (The Doc Is In) was viewed about 87,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

In 2011, there were 387 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 757 posts.

The busiest day of the year was January 1st with 3,355 views.

Image via Wikipedia

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that:

When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

However, in our government more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger (and more expensive) whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

4. Arranging trips to other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.

5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase efficiency.

9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse’s performance.

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some live horses.

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And of course….

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

If you don’t understand the stupidity in this reasoning, you probably are happy with the way our tax money is being spent…