White House: Here's Where Your Taxes Are Going

As you file your 1040, the White House wants you to know just how those dollars are being spent—so, for the third year in a row, it's offering a website to calculate just that. At the 2012 Federal Taxpayer Receipt, you enter your Social Security, Medicare, and income tax payments to learn what you spent where. The site offers specifics as President Obama pushes a budget that has drawn criticism from officials on both sides of the aisle, CNN notes.

CNN reviews the tax bill of a married couple with one kid, making the approximate median US income: some $50,000 a year. That family spends 1.99% of its income on income tax. The biggest portion of that, about a quarter, goes to defense spending—largely on current military operations. Some 22.45% of income tax heads to health care, the site says. Meanwhile, 1.45% of the family's household income goes to the Medicare tax. But the largest chunk, some 4.2% of income, goes to the Social Security tax. (More taxes stories.)