It’s April 15, my eldest daughter’s birthday. I used to tell her she wouldn’t have to pay taxes like everyone else, because IRS folks wouldn’t dare make her file on her birthday, would they?
Seriously, when it comes to family and taxes, I’m just glad that my wife does all the work.
My job is getting the birthday cake.
You can understand why I’d shirk the tax work. There are 40,000 sections to the tax code, and no one understands it all.
This complexity has costs. And not just to my sanity. A whole industry has risen to ease the burden of figuring out our taxes. One hates to begrudge anyone an honest living, but really, most of today’s tax accountants would better serve humanity in some other job.
Simplifying taxes should be as important as tax reduction. Instead, because our representatives and our president just cannot stop themselves from spending more and more of our money, they are raising taxes. It’ll be on the proverbial rich, in the immediate future, but they won’t stop there.
They can’t stop there.
Why? Because if you took all the wealth — not just the income, but all the wealth — from every millionaire in the country, you still couldn’t pay all the future obligations of the federal government.
My darling daughter aside, April 15 is no day to celebrate. It’s tax day, and it marks the degradation of our nation at the hands of our politicians.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Commiserations on Tax Day”
[…] our tax code, we could eliminate much of this cost, and return that effort to productive use. As Paul Jacob writes in his column for today: “This complexity has costs. And not just to my sanity. A whole industry has risen to ease […]
the tax on tea was 3%
The number I heard this morning was $338,000,000,000 JUST for tax preparation and record keeping, NOT including the actual tax payments.
Your government — just here to help… themselves to your hard-earned wealth.
[…] Common Sense with Paul Jacob — Brought to You by Citizens in Charge Foundation » Archive » Commise… thisiscommonsense.com/?p=5778 – view page – cached It’s April 15, my eldest daughter’s birthday. I used to tell her she wouldn’t have to pay taxes like everyone else, because IRS folks wouldn’t dare make her file on her birthday, would they? Tweets about this link Topsy.Data.Twitter.User[‘wirkman’] = {“location”:“Wahkiakum County”,“photo”:“http://a1.twimg.com/profile_images/796100312/wirkman-logo_normal.jpg”,“name”:“T.W. Virkkala”,“url”:“http://twitter.com/wirkman”,“nick”:“wirkman”,“description”:“Editor and locofoco propagandist.”,“influence”:“”}; wirkman: “Commiserations on Tax Day: http://bit.ly/diV0UH Paul Jacob on the meaning of April 15. ” 3 minutes ago view tweet retweet Filter tweets […]
[…] our tax code, we could eliminate much of this cost, and return that effort to productive use. As Paul Jacob wrote in a commentary: “This complexity has costs. And not just to my sanity. A whole industry has risen to ease […]