#148 — A Taxing Situation
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Every April I’m called upon to account for how I spent the previous year; how I spent taking care of my dependents, how I spent paying off my mortgage, and how I spent on a whole laundry list of other tax-deductible items. Fortunately, in the interest of making this as difficult as possible, the United State Internal Revenue Service has provided several hundred thousand confusing and mutually-contradictory forms and instruction sheets.
The tax laws in the United States represent a wildly successful attempt to create a set of rules so complex and confusing that nobody truly understands them; sort of like the hand-to-hand combat rules in Dungeons and Dragons. Tax lawyers can spend endless happy (and billable) hours arguing about whether or not Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps can legitimately deduct the cost of an Armani suit as a business expense. (The answer is “yes,” but only if he actually wears it in the pool while competing.)
If you are unskilled at law, you might assume that the tax codes are the way they are because they’ve just sort of grown up like ivy in an untended garden or mold on cheese left too long in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. If you think that, you’re not giving the government enough credit. Sure, at first, the tax laws grew complicated because nobody was paying attention, but once it realized what had happened, the government sensed a golden opportunity. (By which I mean they sensed an opportunity to seize your gold.)
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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the ‘Play’ button at the top of this post. If you’d rather read it, you can find the full text at http://myfavoriteshortcomings.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/a-taxing-situation/
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Notes:
- Thanks to everyone for the great feedback this week including:
Ringmaster Greg
P. Shane McAfee’s
Ogre_Kev
JeffreyHite
Walt Snider - Check out KoreRPG at:
http://korecentral.com/
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Ha, ha! Hilarious as always. Doing taxes makes me feel a lot like walking into a final test in a math class completely unprepared. I usually get letters back telling me I did something wrong.
I think taxes are the government’s way of balancing out the seasons. If they came in January, there would be an increase of suicides – hence fewer tax payers. If they did it near Christmastime, there would be revolution and civil war. Since April is a beautiful time of year, when people are generally happy with each other, and gas prices haven’t peaked yet, they can come out and say, “Ok, it’s time!” and we all grudgingly agree.
- Chas
http://chas.willowrise.com