Dictionary definition of a tax: a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc. Nothing in that says that if it's earmarked for a specific program, it stops being a tax. In fact, it refers to both the general fund (for its support) and for specific programs (or for specific facilities or services).
It isn't earmarked for specific services or facilities. It's something like a 401K where your employer withholds the desired amount and pays it to some trust fund manager. In the case of social security, the manager is the social security administration. You need to look at the initial act and also consider why the government's books show this as "off budget" unlike, say, the highway trust fund.
Unlike a 401(k), it's neither optional nor paid directly back to the person paying it. The money paid now goes to seniors now. You get money in future, when you are old enough to qualify, from people paying in at that point (theoretically). This is why conservatives detest social security...its not a personal trust, but a tax to redistribute wealth (mostly for the benefit of poor seniors, but obviously all seniors can get it, even rich ones). If it were an optional trust that was held and invested just for you, I'd agree that it wasn't a tax.
It may seem like a redistribution to you, but it's really a ponzi scheme. That's where the crook sells stock (shares in SS) to new investors to pay off the previous round (generation). Anyhow, it is like a 401K because you get paid out in proportion to what you paid in. You failed. To address the off budget thing.
It's very literally and inarguably redistribution. It's taking money from wage-earners and providing it to largely fixed-income people. The people receiving the money are not the ones who paid it in. Whether it is also a ponzi scheme is up to opinion, but even if it were, it wouldn't contradict the fact that it is redistribution. That's cool. And a bird is similar to an elephant in that both depend on oxygen. That doesn't make a bird an elephant, and the similarity you note doesn't make a payroll tax a 401(k). I did indeed fail to address that because it was a non sequitur. I've yet to see anyone define a tax based on how the government accounts for it in the books. Well, other than you. I've seen many people define taxes as I do, including dictionaries.
Fail twice now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax The legal definition and the economic definition of taxes differ in that economists do not consider many transfers to governments to be taxes. For example, some transfers to the public sector are comparable to prices. Examples include tuition at public universities and fees for utilities provided by local governments. Governments also obtain resources by creating money (e.g., printing bills and minting coins), through voluntary gifts (e.g., contributions to public universities and museums), by imposing penalties (e.g., traffic fines), by borrowing, and by confiscating wealth. From the view of economists, a tax is a non-penal, yet compulsory transfer of resources from the private to the public sector levied on a basis of predetermined criteria and without reference to specific benefit received.
So by your interpretation of that, a highway tax isn't a tax because it references a specific benefit.
Fascinating take. Pretty minority, potentially minority of one. Anyway, since you accept Wikipedia as a good source, witness as it betrays you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax#In_the_United_States Run-down of payroll taxes in the US. Hits on individual components of the tax, like social security and Medicares taxes (you can get a tax credit if you pay too much in Social Security taxes) and unemployment insurance taxes. So, if you still think it's not a tax, we'll have to agree to disagree. I'll stick with the widely-held conception of taxation.
If Social Security withholding were a tax, it would have been cut during the Bush years, the Reagan years, etc.
