The average American pays more than half of their income to a mixture of taxes. Off the top of my head, there is income tax, property tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, school tax, and state tax to name a few.  Experts estimate that in 2014 Americans paid 54.24 cents per dollar on taxes. In addition to the 54.24% paid in taxes, an additional 17.25% disappears to interest and fees. In 2014, the average American household credit card debt exceeded $15,000, over $33,000 in student loans and over $150,000 in mortgage debt. If you do the math, only 28.5% of your hard-earned income is left to pay for everything else. We need to become educated on how to effectively survive in this economy. We need to find ways to become more efficient with our taxes and eliminate as much of the fees and interest as possible so we can have a better tomorrow.