HTT: How To Tax Season

Well, we're in the final breaths of tax season. Unless you've already filed your extension. Or you're a church or a political action committee (more on that later).

And I'll let you know a little terrible secret.

I don't mind paying taxes.

I know.

Sounds weird.

But I don't. It just seems to me to be the kinda thing you do if you want roads to drive on, and public schools with traffic guards in little orange vests, and a whole bunch of people trying to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of religious fundamentalists.

Clean water is nice too. Air that's breathable. I like taking out my copyrights and knowing that someone is keeping me from being infringed.

It's not a perfect system. Obviously. And it's not a fair system. Obviously. And if I had my druthers I'd prefer if more of my hard earned resources went to education, health care, and public radio and much much less on tobacco and corn subsidies, but there are very good reasons why I'm not fully in charge of such things.

I say 'not fully' because I'm not helpless. I do vote.

We do get to do that . . . you know . . . we get to vote.

If you don't, you should try it sometime, even if as an intellectual exercise. If anything, at least it gives you the right to complain.

It's like what my mom says about playing the lottery: You don't expect to win, but $2 does buy you permission to dream.

I'd say that's worth it.

What I don't like, and I'm sure you're with me on this if you weren't with me before, is cheaters.

Cheaters everywhere.

And not just the blatantly illegal kind, but I find myself loathing the kind of people who have the audacity to 'work the system'.

And it's only probably because 'working the system' is something I'm terrible at.

What's even more disturbing to me is how complicated systems have to become in order to deal with all the people that try to 'work it.'

I was not born with a single 'work the system' bone in my body. I like to check the boxes in all the appropriate places, smile my charming smile, and tell people to have a nice day.

I'd probably be a hell of a lot more financially successful in life if being a squeaky wheel was something I was remotely good at. But I'm not a squeaker, I'm a WD40 kinda guy.

For today's How to Tuesday I thought I'd like to apply at little grease to a few little sticking points.

First: Did you know that every dollar that goes to funding the IRS results in a net gain of $6 to the National Budget? That means for every dollar we invest, we get back $6.

And that's just playing by the rules. That's not even having to change a single line of the tax code. Sure it's political suicide to suggest such a thing, but seriously Congress, sneak it past us. Fund the IRS on the Monday after a really good episode of Game of Thrones, we won't even notice.

We're really not paying that close attention.

Second: Close a few loopholes. Not saying all of them (though the first I'd wanna tackle is off-shore tax shelters cause that's being a shitty American, looking at you Apple). I'm saying you get like five people in the room to go over the tax code. Each person has to read out loud a section. The litmus test for cutting any program should be any line that requires the reader to follow up with this question "We really do that? Really? Jesus!"

Third: Speaking of Jesus. And Allah, and Jehovah, Vishnu, Jim Jones, Brigham Young, and L.Ron Hubbard.

I'm not saying they don't provide a service, cause they do. God will provide.

But do they really provide a different service than Starbucks?

Their books don't need to contain nutrition facts, but you gotta admit, religion is nothing but a brick and mortar establishment of the ephemera.

Organized religion is retail.

I'm just saying, food for thought really, that it's in our constitution that the government will not establish any religion, and isn't tax exemption the same as subsidizing, and isn't subsidizing the same as paying for?

Caution though. The Kool-Aid might be cheap, but it's extremely hot.

Fourth: Speaking of really cheap Kool Aid, the age of high fructose corn syrup needs to come to an end. Nixon was pretty much a genius in not only increasing our national food stores, but using government money to keep millions of growers afloat, but world wide distribution is no longer a matter of weeks, it's a matter of hours, we don't need to produce so much stable goo any longer, we can produce actual food.

Fill my dinner plate with the meats of capitalism, and not the socialized system we have now.

It's a thing to consider.

In closing however, all of this is just at the top of my head. As I said earlier, the tax code is not perfect, nor is it fair, nor is it remotely fixable in my lifetime, but I do get to vote.

Which gives me the right to complain.

However quietly I choose to do so.

Squeak.



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