theDaddy’s
Taxes Tirade!!!
CAVEAT:
Much
of the
following tirade
combines
thoughts and writings previously expressed in one form or another.
And, yes, I do have some new
observations
at the end. No,
no one will be quoting anything I say 50 years hence.
As
with observations
which
preceded,
no one will pay
any attention whatsoever. Not
worried, though.
Being
a mere man who
writes to find out what I’m thinking,
I am
used to both
being
listened
to when wrong and ignored when right.
WINE
& ROSES
“A
Billion here, a Billion there, after a
while you’re talking about real money.”
The
Good Life
Me
and Kay have a
fairly good life in
a town with the
unlikely
name Brazil, in
Clay County
Indiana USA.
There
probably
are
those who appreciate living here as much as I. But,
it
is unlikely anyone appreciates it more. Maybe that’s because I
spent so much of my life in an impersonal big city, while most folks
here had the advantage of always
calling this home and may
be
unaware
of said advantage. Overall
I
kinda like the country (and the county) in
which we live and
think the price imposed
by taxes seems
something of a bargain. A
bargain enhanced
by
monthly checks
from Social Security and
medical bills paid by Medicare, and
by
not
making enough
money to be taxed since
retiring.
At
No Cost To Us
Of
course we’re not the only ones to live the good life courtesy the
largesse of America. I mean, there seems to be no limit to how much
our government spends on welfare of we the people.
In
last year
alone
we’ve
also
benefited from:
Every
person breathing – and few who weren’t – got $2,000 to spend
on anything their little black hearts desired.
Over
250-million virus vaccinations were produced, distributed,
administered, and paid for.
In
the coming year our kids and grandkids can look forward to promised:
Payment
of childcare expenses so our woman folk can stop worrying about
being mothers 24/7 and get back to bringing home some money.$300
per month free money just for
having
a kid. Money
which can be spent at
will on
“cigarettes, whiskey,
and wild wild women”. Wish we still had some
kids at home so
I could get me some….never mind.
All
at no cost to
us.
Is America a great country, or what?
NOBLESSE
OBLIGE?
“Taxes
are the price you pay to live in a civilized society.”
Paying
The Piper
Would
you believe spending money leads to needing more money? Who knew?
If you’re a government there are three tried-n-true need-money
options: Stop spending so much money, raise income by
raising taxes, or borrow some more money and let your
grandkids worry about paying it back.
Cutting
expense has
been advocated by every presidential candidate since Richard Nixon.
None have cut
federal expenditure.
All
left increased
spending in their wake.
The
Republicans
never
want to raise
taxes because rich folk are their main supporters. Democrats,
on the other hand
have no rich donors
to
placate, just
don’t want their voters taxed.
Neither
Party, though,
is anxious to be identified with this need-money solution.
Borrowing
is always easiest thing to do. It’s not really money [see previous
tirade
on Fairydust
Funds]. And, it
can be hidden until some
future generation must
cut their expense and/or
raise their taxes!
Now
or tomorrow or some distant moon, however, every government goes back
to raising taxes. I like the idea of somehow taxing
the grandkids – so
I won’t have to listen to our
kids gripe about
paying taxes.
Have
I Got This Right?
Let
me see if I’ve got this modern taxation thing right. The
government prints the money. They do this very well and frown on
anyone else doing it. We have to use their currency which they issue
to us, even though its value consists solely in how well we trust the
issuer. Then, every time money passes from one hand to the next for
“value received” the government wants back some of the
money which they themselves printed. For example, if the kid who
cuts your grass earns more than $400 in any calendar year, the
government wants back part of the money it printed. If they don’t
get it, the kid goes to fed’s Pen at Leavenworth Kansas. Have we
got this correct so far?
Can’t
Take It With You
In
The Shawshank Redemption actor Morgan Freeman’s character says, “I
don’t have to do anything but stay black and die.” He forgot
to mention taxes. As Benjamin Franklin somewhat more succinctly put
it, “… in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except
death and taxes.” Of course while it is still appointed unto
man once to die, you actually don’t have to pay taxes. They say
Kansas is lovely in the spring when grass needs cutting, anyhow.
Whose
Idea Was This?
As
I understand history, taxes began as simply the stronger taking from
the weaker. Thus a weaker merchant traveling across some stronger
person’s territory would be subject to having all his goods taken.
The problem which soon developed was that if you take all a person
has with which to earn his living, that person will not return later
due to having been put out of business. Once the goods of the
merchant were consumed there would be nothing left to the stronger to
live on, making him weaker. Thus began the system which we call
“taxation.” The idea of taxes being to extort just enough to
leave the poor saps an incentive to make more money and come back
next year. From the earner’s perspective if it took less to pay
the “toll” than move to another land, the merchant would simply
pay the extortion and go about his business.
Enter
The ‘Bean Counters’
Somewhere
lost in history this extortion developed into government sanctioned
taxation. Naturally, with government intervention came exact
formulas for determining how much could be extorted to maintain the
stronger while keeping the weaker coming back. However, this formula
was deliberately kept decipherable only by the bureaucrat who had
developed their own systems for taking from the weak. The merchant’s
goal, of course, became to so deceive the tax collector as to pay the
least possible tax. Soon enough it came to be the more one spent on
tax experts (who learned how to hide beans) the less one actually
paid in tax.
Gobbledygook
For
practical purposes current
tax laws all
derive from the
original provisions of
Revenue Code of 1954 (as
revised). In
those days the country assumed as
‘given truth’
it was in nation’s
best interest for a man
and woman to
marry and she quit working full-time in order to raise kids. This
was rewarded in the Tax
Code
[and, as it turns out,
punished the woman for working full-time].
If her husband
died there was provision for widow to find a new man, she
had two years. Also,
we old folk were rewarded for getting old and voting Republican.
Punished by the Code
were those who remained
single, or who tried to file without their ‘spouse’.
Unfortunately, in
making tax laws on
those
basic assumptions Congress failed to repeal the “Law
of Unintended Consequences”
and/or anticipate the
vicissitudes of politics.
In
America we perpetuate the ancient traditions of prestidigitation by
electing representatives to travel to Washington. There they can go
to great lengths to insure tax regulations are re-complicated on a
regular basis. This guarantees none of the weaker (that is, poorer)
among us will ever really understand why some specific amount is to
be extorted (paid). The Republicans make changes which affect the
rich, the Democrats those which may effect the poor. Henry Bloch,
founder of H & R Block, once said something to the effect that H&
R would be out of business in five years if Congress stopped changing
the tax laws. Can’t wait to see what will happen next.
In
case you don’t remember 1954 (I was 11), the world has changed
while Congress was ‘busy doing other things’. Sticking to
1954 ‘givens’ as their base so many changes have been made
it takes a super computer to track to how to pay taxes. And so, as
the lady said, here we are.
In
10,000 years of human history nobody has come up with a better
system. I for one am open to suggestions.
SWEEP
BACK TIDE WITH BROOM!
“Anyone
may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as
possible…"
According
to 12th century legend King Canute the Great proposed
sweeping back the tide with a broom. One assumes his success would
be the same if he attempted to sweep back the IRS. As promised, here
are the inane ideas of one mere man as to what he’d do if there is
ever an opening for a tax law sweeper-backer.
In
interest of full disclosure, none of this has been researched, real
life numbers have not been run, and I am totally unprepared and/or
unwilling to defend anything herein:
Suggestion
#1
No
corporate tax. Rather, all corporations would be ‘pass through’
entries whose profits or loss would pass direct to shareholder. That
is, if my one share of Bluwraps Unlimited earns $100 for year, I
include $100 as income for year – whether I got the 100 bucks or
not. There would be no ‘tax credits’ – ‘phantom deductions’
– or other loopholes.
Suggestion
#2
A
true “Flat Tax” on personal income: ‘Here’s what I got,
here’s your tribute (I mean taxes)’. No deductions, no credits,
no rebates. Hey, after all, it’s all just fairydust money the
government printed.
Suggestion
#3
This
true “Flat Tax” would be the only tax. That is, eliminate sales
tax, property tax, etc. and the bureaucracies needed to construct
regulations for collecting them.
King
Canute I’m Not
If
you should quite naively think any of these suggestions might ever be
considered by any politician with ability to do anything about it,
see opening caveat.
Just
a tirade for some future generation...
