Thoughts on tax day
[NOTE: This is an edited version of an essay of mine from the past.]
Today is April 15th.
Ah, paying taxes. What fun! Along with close to 100% of Americans, I hate the process. It’s an attitude that unites us like almost nothing else. This year, it’s even worse than usual, because the IRS has proven itself to be beneath contempt.
But to go back in time—tax day always reminds me of my father. He was both a lawyer and a certified public accountant, but it’s the latter profession that conjures up the April memories for me. He was not the Taxman (see video above) but the Taxmiddleman, the one who prepared tax forms—often of a very complex nature—and did it all by hand back in those pre-computer, pre-calculator days. Actually, I suppose there were calculators back then—clunky mechanical ones, much like the calculator our neighbors had in their house to use for their business. But my father disdained and distrusted calculators, preferring to rely on his lightening-fast abilities with pencil and paper.
Every year starting around February—when my parents always went away to warmer climes for about ten days, in preparation for the long hard slog to come—until April 15th my father would come home from work every night, eat dinner, and go immediately to a small table in our living room. There he’d set up shop until bedtime, around 11:30 or midnight, and then repeat the entire process the next day. Weekends it started earlier. No TV for him, and almost no relaxation, just this quiet sitting in a chair, bending over papers and fiddling with small figures.
For those months, we kids were instructed to tiptoe around in the evenings and not disturb him. This was a tense time. We could see it in his exhausted face and bloodshot eyes.
And so in our house April 15 was a very happy day. That’s probably true for all the Taxmiddlemen/women.
Here’s the thing: The tax code has gotten way bigger and much more complex since when your father was doing returns by hand. Today’s compliance costs are huge for persons and corporations.
The tax code is how pols generate campaign contributions and try to control both the economy and the electorate.
Imagine how much money would be put to productive use if there was no IRS. That’s why I support Cruz.
Add in the fact that the IRS is the tool of the Democratic Party and the billions in cheating (the two schemes I detest the most being felons and illegal aliens getting cash with EIC), and it is easy to see why I hate April 15th. Pure torture.
The Internal Revenue Code is the source of our problems.
With nearly 50% of the people in America paying no income tax at all, it is the rest of us that do not like the process. With no accountability to the ruling class, this will continue and get worse. I have thought that our country was a tipping point for years, but it just goes on and on. I hope that the reckoning will somehow be gentle.
“This year, it’s even worse than usual, because the IRS has proven itself to be beneath contempt.”
That my friend will get you a visit from the friendly tax man to show you what they do to their enemies!
There was a time when this type of banter would be taken tongue in cheek.
Nowadays one has to wonder and remember the old adage– Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that they are not after you. 🙁
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/09/irs-employees-allegedly-wore-pro-obama-gear-to-work-urged-callers-to-vote-for/
IRS workers in several offices have been openly supporting President Obama, including by donning pro-Obama paraphernalia and urging callers to reelect the president in 2012, according to allegations contained in a new government watchdog report.
Here’s something for the 50% that don’t pay income taxes: If you like your government, start paying for it.
Net Present Value of all Federal Obligations: $207 Trillion.
Good luck with that, people.
They don’t need taxes. They can just print more money. Same end result for the fed coffers.
I remember my dad calling The Taxman the only conservative song the Beatles ever wrote.
Besides having to deal with people who don’t pay any taxes, my head explodes whenever I see the “earned income tax credit”. A nice little scam for people who not only paid NO taxes, they got a “refund”.
And if you are lucky enough to experience a corporate shakedown by the United Way, you can hear about how proud they are to get accountants to help people claim the earned income tax credit. So not only is the government fleecing you for the zero taxpayers, you get professional tax accountants volunteering to help them fill out their tax forms to get every dollar the government is able to take from you. That’s great work for a charity to be engaged in. Asking for donations, while bragging about how they are helping to redistribute your income with the tax code.
Meanwhile, I am hoping I will qualify for a refund, any refund, again.
Anyone who gives to United Way is a sucka. Give to individual entities. Same goes for gifts to RNC instead of individual candidates.
Cornhead:
I’m not at all sure it’s gotten that much more complex, although perhaps for very large corporations it has.
My father did the bulk of his work in the 1950s and 1960s, when marginal tax rates were very high and tax shelters and loopholes were rife. Many of his clients had to avail themselves of the latter, and they needed a crackerjack accountant to do so. My father was a crackerjack accountant.
My father spent his Saturdays making deliveries for his brother’s wholesale butchering business. When I was older I got to ride with him in a dark blue Dodge panel truck all over Philadelphia, from the docks to the delis on Marshall St. Saturday night I tallied the receipts, carbon copies of course, and I got to run the big greasy clunky mechanical adding machine. Good times! But I still don’t like doing taxes.
This has been the worst season for us: sixteen hour days for my husband all week long, my working for a firm that lost four people during the year and left us in a lurch, two neglected toddlers and a nasty first trimester…we are very glad to be done. My husband’s company is taking them to steak and lobster for lunch today, then we’re headed off for a much needed beach vacation.
Hey Southpaw- I agree with you 100% but in case you didn’t know it- This will really get your goat. And don’t expect the gutless republicks to change the system. After all, it isn’t their money. 🙁
“People who are not legally authorized to work in the United States claimed more than $4 billion from the additional child tax credit in processing year 2010, according to a 2011 inspector general report.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/12/republicans-vow-to-cut-off-child-tax-credit-for-il/?page=all
Neo:
Rumsfeld agrees with me. See his Twitter account.
And I sure your Dad was a crackerjack accountant.
Don Carlos – you are correct. However the United Way has done a great job of making CEOs into advocates for their cause by celebrating the generosity of their organization, and giving them good publicity. The upshot is a month of arm twisting and peer pressure thru various corporate sponsored activities to get employee donations. There are consequences.
Mike –
Thx for the spike in blood pressure. I really like the compromise rationalization: …”there could be a middle ground that prevents families who fake children or those who don’t live in the U.S. from receiving the benefits, but still allows legal citizens with illegal parents to benefit from the payment.
So it’s ok to give illegal aliens refunds if they really do have children, just not the ones who fake it. Well sure that makes great sense. Any reasonable republican should realize it encourages illegal aliens to have more kids, who they can claim on their taxes for the job they aren’t supposed to have here.
Same as Death Day, although not quite.