Duck Season…Rabbit Season…Tax Season

Well, it’s a week into March, and I’ve got my feathers in a ruffle once again about the insanity that has become the United States tax system.

Forget the dance of finding all the receipts that are lying around the house. Forget the downloading of the necessary forms (for it’s been years since we merely needed the ones that came in the book) and taking the time to parse through the directions and fill them out and assemble them in the correct order and…

How many of you actually read the beginning pages of those tax books? You know, where they communicate what is new for this past tax year, and what is to come?

Let alone the intro letter from the Commissioner, that begins, “Paying taxes is a unifying experience fundamental to democracy and the rule of law…”

I want whoever constructed this sentence tied to a chair and slapped very hard, repeatedly.

OK, I can get behind democracy. Sometimes, it’s a good idea. It’s definitely better than some other forms of government, where they take half your income and piss all over your civil liberties and…OK, never mind. But “unifying experience?” A plane crash, a funeral, surviving a natural disaster…these are also unifying experiences yet I have no wish to experience them every year with my fellow Americans, let alone pay the government for the privilege.

And let’s talk about “the rule of law.” There are some who say that there is no federal law that requires income taxes to be paid. That it is only considered a “voluntary contribution” and that the laws set up by the government protecting themselves are corrupt. There’s a very small but vociferous movement out there (I’d tell you more about them but the government demanded they take down their web site) touting this, and once in a while someone (like Wesley Snipes, most recently) tests it by not paying their taxes, only causing the government to come down on them as hard as whoever that woman was who wore a “Bush Sucks” t-shirt to the Republican National Convention. So they the IRS does little coercive things like plant stories in newspapers and on the web about people who get arrested for tax evasion…coincidentally, these pop up just before the filing deadline.

So if you flip to page 11 of your tax form booklets, class, you will see an item that reads, “Personal exemption and itemized deduction phaseouts reduced. Taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes above a certain amount may lose part of their deduction…”

One: “Phaseout?” Are these exemptions and deductions being “phased out??” If so, when is this happening and why did nobody tell us? This is HUGE. Unless they are about to tell me that they are being phased out and into a flat tax, what’s going on here?

Two (and I know I’m going to start a large argument here): Why is it that people get their panties in a bunch when ANY kind of tax increases are announced (although apparently this is OK with the populace at large, as people seem to be shrugging and opening their wallets nonetheless) but tax increases for the rich (actually for the AGI limit the IRS has set, this includes also the not-so-rich), there seems to be a tacit agreement that this is their obligation. The US is supposed to be the “land of opportunity” where immigrants can come over with a few hundred dollars in their pockets and parlay it into a fortune if they work hard, but hard work is punished with additional tax burdens. And don’t give me that “tax loophole” argument. There are just as many tax loopholes and goodies and deductions for lower-income people. They are also eligible for free tax help and if they have children, can take the Earned Income Credit. The ones who really get screwed are the middle classes and the married couples with no children.

Damn, I knew I should have had a few of those.

Another item on page 11: “Expired” tax benefits include tuition. What are we telling people now? That education beyond the 12th grade is no longer a priority for this government? That we’re supposed to be unqualified for the increasingly technical jobs this country needs, yet not supposed to make enough money to pay for the tuition ourselves?

No wonder all the good jobs are moving overseas.