alt Hacker News>TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners
just a point of clarification, the term "payroll taxes" refers to Social Security and Medicare taxes that are applied to your paycheck; you don't pay them, self-employed and employers pay those. Wage-earners do not pay them directly, but do collect the social security and Medicare benefits that they pay for later in life, so in that sense it's something of a deferred bonus to workers.
Everybody also pays income taxes which are a separate set of taxes, and they are equally hated by all.
"payroll taxes" are called that because they are applied to payrolls of people who pay payrolls. Payroll taxes would not pay for things like mass transit.
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> you don't pay them, self-employed and employers pay those
If a tax is a function of the worker's income, it doesn't really matter (except for nominal terms) whether the worker or employer pays the taxes, the economic effect is the same. Who actually bears the burden of the tax ends up determined by the price elasticity of supply/demand in that labor market, and is not determined by who is on the hook for the literal payment.
Employers and employees split payroll taxes 50/50 by law. You definitely pay payroll taxes as an employee in the US.
If you are self-employed, you have to manually pay the tax because there's no employer wage to automatically deduct from.
A quick search could have resolved your confusion before commenting nonsense.
The OTT payroll tax isn't that onerous really. (I say this as someone who pays them for our employees.)
> Payroll taxes would not pay for things like mass transit
In Oregon, TriMet is funded by a payroll tax: https://www.oregon.gov/dor/programs/businesses/pages/trimet-...
> The Oregon Department of Revenue administers tax programs for the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District (TriMet). Nearly every employer who pays wages for services performed in this district must pay transit payroll tax.
> The transit tax is imposed directly on the employer. The tax is figured only on the amount of gross payroll for services performed within the TriMet Transit District. This includes traveling sales representatives and employees working from home.