Tax Time Travail
by reformed former tax preparer David L Lewis
“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes, nor public duty to pay more than the law demands." Supreme Court Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961)
Now that the moon has gone back to wherever it hides in the daytime, the news people can go on to the next immutable natural phenomena -- Tax Time! It gets to page one in the news just now because the busiest time in tax business are first two weeks of April - when folks expecting to owe money file at late as possible.
In the interest of full disclosure, I operated tax preparation businesses over fifteen years. Every year IRS would “improve’ the forms. As Henry Block said, “If they stopped making changes to the laws and the forms, we’d go out of business.” Truth is once you filled out one or two the rest were easy.
Of course it’s been quite a while since I filled out those forms, so I may be a bit rusty on the subject. 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 for them.
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, well, federal prison at Leavenworth Kansas is lovely in the Spring with lots of grass to cut.
Finally, congress says they can’t do such & such because they don’t have enough tax money; but they can pay for this more Popular thing with borrowed money -- providing a benefit which their donors will almost certainly filter down to us, eventually.
So, why can’t the government just print themselves enough money to pay off all their bills and let us have the rest? That would certainly end a lot of tax time travail.
Ain’t this a great country or not?
theNoLongerTaxGuru
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