I am not a happy camper. I spent Friday morning from 5:30 a.m., when I woke and stumbled to the coffee pot, until nearly noon trying to prepare my 2014 income tax returns.
I had to stop because I had not received a 1099 from a publisher telling me I’d earned few dollars in royalties. I then learned from an online tax preparation software service that I’d have to pay them an extra $59.99 (more than four times the amount of the royalty payments) to prepare a return that included those royalties.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind paying taxes, even though I know that a good chunk of what I pay will go toward graft, inefficiency, and corruption. The part that goes toward legitimate programs is worth it, in my mind. (What constitutes graft and corruption versus legitimate programs is something we can talk about later.)
What I don’t like are the needless complications, the frustration, and the required forms and paperwork.
I understand that writing was invented by the Sumerians around 5,200 BCE primarily for the purpose of keeping records of taxes owed and paid. History does not record who invented the “inbox,” but I suspect that came quickly afterwards. (There is some evidence at Canyon Tepesi that writing was invented in what is now Turkey around 9,250 BCE, but the best evidence still is from the Tigris-Euphrates region … the part of the world that Isis is trying to destroy, actually. Sorry, got off the subject.)
The tax code has gotten out of hand. This is not new knowledge. The federal income tax, which would be of questionable legality had not the 16th Amendment to the Constitution been passed, quickly changed from a revenue measure to a social engineering measure.
And then, as a product of the corruption that rules the Congress and of the collusion between the Congress and their paymasters on K Street (the cesspool of lobbyists who are the real writers of legislation), became a tool of corporate cronyism.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist. If I were, I’d think that someone, somewhere was doing their best to ensure that the American people were too overwhelmed by the complexities of the current tax code to really understand how we — I include myself — are being manipulated. I would think that the purpose of the tax code now included making all of us criminals, for there probably is not one of us who can file a perfect return.
What’s the answer? I don’t know. The message of the TEA Party is, in my opinion, too simplistic. The message from the IRS is, in my opinion, entirely too complicated. The so-called “flat tax” is, in my opinion, a gimmick that would just as easily as the current system devolve to corruption, inefficiency, social engineering, corporate cronyism, and complexity.
What do you think?
Paul Lentz
Peachtree City, Ga.
