It's not the taxes but net transfers which count: Government benefits (transfers) - taxes paid Even then you don't have the full picture. US AFDC (food stamps) had efficiency measured at $0.27 per dollar of budget reaching the recipient and $0.73 going to the bureaucracy. So multiply transfers by 4 before subtracting tax paid to understand the financial impact more correctly. Then multiply by -1 to represent this as a cost to tax payers