Tag: Tax Day

Categories
folly general freedom national politics & policies tax policy too much government

Procrastinators’ Weekend

Emancipation Day, tax, taxes

Usually, April 15 is the deadline date, in these United States, to file taxes or apply for an extension. This year it is April 18.

Why? Many of us think of the Fifteenth of April as Tax Day. It seems strange and arbitrary when it is jiggered with. And kind of annoying.

But a postponement of taxes could be a postponement we might all appreciate as a tiny (ever so slight) reprieve.

So, again, why this year’s three-​day extra leeway?

First off, it is regularly postponed when the day falls on a Saturday or Sunday.

Could it be that the “Nothing Gets Done on Friday” Rule has been acknowledged by the fine folks at the Internal Revenue Service?

No.

People in Maine and Massachusetts celebrate Patriots Day on April 18, so their tax day is set another day later, April 19.

Which begs the question. Why the 18th in the first place?

Well, because of Emancipation Day, usually celebrated in Washington, DC, on April 16.

Because the 16th settles on a Saturday this year, and because the day is a traditional day off for federal workers, the holiday shifts a day in advance, to this Friday, the 15th. So, Emancipation Day — commemorating the signing of the Emancipation Act by President Abraham Lincoln — trumps Tax Filing Day.

Apt, since it might seem cruel to Americans to have Tax Day, marking the subservience of a whole population to its government, fall on something called Emancipation Day.

After all, consider: holding them on the same day? Hmmm. Might get people thinking.

Bigwigs in DC don’t want that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Emancipation Day, tax, taxes

 

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Categories
responsibility too much government

The Ten Trillion Dollar Decade

It’s Tax Day tomorrow. Waiting till the last moment to file because you’ll have to write a check?

It hurts, but you must be financially better off than the federal government, which itself owes $17.5 trillion, all because Congress and the President refuse to balance budgets.

In the last ten years, according to a convenient Department of Treasury website, the federal government’s debt has not merely doubled, it has ballooned … by more than $10 trillion.

During the Reagan Administration, we were aghast at the idea of a “mere” one trillion dollar debt. I remember “No Trillion Dollar Debt” signs.

Waving signs didn’t help.

But something’s gotta give. As J. D. Tuccille writes, “you have to think that it’s going to occur to people that the United States government seems neither willing nor able to stop borrowing, and to start paying the sum down, even a little bit.”

Debts must be repaid, with interest. That goes for the last decade’s additional ten trillion tonnage of “bricks” now hanging over our heads.

Writing your check to the government isn’t made any more pleasant by pondering how paltry your payment is compared to what’s needed to make a dent in the debt. Moreover, even amid constant talk about “cuts,” federal government spending continues to increase. Thus, getting out of debt is not about writing checks to government. It’s about government writing fewer and smaller checks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.