DOD has a hand out on April 17

Introduction

Want to know how much of your tax money is going to the military? Thanks to a new website from the federal government, now you can!

The White House “Federal Taxpayer Receipt” calculator, released Wednesday, asks you to put in how much you paid in taxes this year before spitting out a calculation of how much went to fund what programs. The largest chunk of your taxes goes to the military — 24.9% of tax income, in fact.

The calculator goes farther and breaks down how much of the tax money goes to specific programs within DOD. The (somewhat general) categories:

• Military personnel salaries and benefits — 5.8%
• Ongoing operations, equipment, and supplies — 10.3%
• Research, development, weapons, and construction — 7.9%
• Atomic energy defense activities — 0.7%
• Defense-related FBI activities and additional national defense — 0.2%

After defense, the largest cost is healthcare at 23.7%, followed by “Job and Family Security” (unemployment, housing insurance, etc) at 19.1%. The other categories are all in the low single digits, which only serves as a reminder just how much money the average taxpayer puts in to the defense apparatus of the country each year.

Let’s do some math. The average taxpayer brings in $49,000 a year, according to tax firm HRBlock. A reasonable income tax for that amount is $5,000. Here’s how your money would be spent:

• Military personnel salaries and benefits — $290.00
• Ongoing operations, equipment, and supplies — $515.00
• Research, development, weapons, and construction — $395.00
• Atomic energy defense activities — $35.00
• Defense-related FBI activities and additional national defense — $10.00

That’s a total of $1,245.00 spent of your taxes on defense. So tell us in the comments — do you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth?

(Thanks to our friends at DoD Buzz for the heads up.)