Tax Rant
April 15th, 2008 by Peter SudermanI’ll refrain from posting my own tax rant (believe me, it’s better for both of us). But Megan McArdle’s rant warrants posting, and is especially close to my heart because I, too, made a mid year move (and, as with McArdle, it was from New York, which has even more insanely complicated tax-filing procedures — as well as far higher taxes — than other states):
Every libertarian fiber in my body has been quivering with indignation for a solid twelve hours. Obviously, like everyone else I do not enjoy contemplating my cash outflow to Uncle Sam–I can think of a lot of uses for that cash. That, however, is the price of living in a free society. What bothers me is that it’s so bloody complicated.
I should not have, in the course of paying my debt to society, to spend nine hours answering questions about my educational habits, proclivity to recycle, the location of my potentially qualified small business, whether or not I happen to farm, or any of the 87 trillion other things TurboTax wanted to know. It might have been 87 zillion. Frankly, I lost count.
More than two hundred years ago, we fought a whole revolution and everything to get the government to leave us the hell alone. Now it thinks it’s entitled to know whether I am a qualified small business owning woman. Small business? Check. Woman? Check. Qualified? Who the hell do you think you are, Mr. Tax Man?
All this useless activity is so that our politicians can look like They Care by giving tiny tax breaks to all of their favorite people–that is to say, the people who vote for them and give them money. All of these tax breaks, almost without exception, do the most good for the people who least need them. Meanwhile, they waste time for the rest of us, distort the economy, and require us to pay extra people to process tax returns. It’s lose-lose-lose all around unless you owned a seal-fur farm between 1987 and 1991.
If only. I think I was watching Ninja Turtles reruns during that time frame.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
“More than two hundred years ago, we fought a whole revolution and everything to get the government to leave us the hell alone.”
No, we didn’t. We fought that War because the colonies lacked elected representation in the governing British Parliament…no taxation without representation, remember?
That tax software was just trying to see if you qualified for deductions and credits, which you can opt not to look for if you want to. I agree that the tax code is way too complex and that our govt. has tried to do way too much with the tax code though.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
If I remember my history correctly, our Founding Fathers had a deep founded fear of the abusive powers of Government. In fact, the US Constitution, particularly the first ten Amendments, were were purposely drawn up to protect the People from the Government itself infringing on the individual freedoms outlined in the the Declaration of Independence. America is deteriorating due to our past and current liberal politicians who are overstepping the authority of Government. We need to set up Term Limits (like the President) for Congress to begin to reverse this trend of abusive Federal Government.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
“America is deteriorating due to our past and current liberal politicians who are overstepping the authority of Government.”
Yea, Bushy Boy (that HUGE liberal…not) has been trying to increase the power of the Executive Branch at the expense of our system of checks & balances for quite some time now.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Anyone overstepping their authority, whether it be the President, Congressmen, or federal judges, is “liberal” in my book. Labels are relative not relevant in the political landscape of today. I’m more interested in limiting government. Term Limits for all elected government officials may be good first step.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Ah, so liberal = bad then…thanx for clearing that up…
Some of those “self-term-limited” Republicans from the 1990s are still around though, eh?
April 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Isn’t it nice how conservatives can just make words mean whatever they want them to mean?
April 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
and what’s up with the moderation queue all-of-a-sudden?
April 17th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Hi Sickle, we’ve upgraded the version of Wordpress, its more finicky than normal.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Great platform, though. I had a hunch it was an upgrade (I wasn’t thinking anything insidious) and mostly just wanted to make sure I didn’t double-post or anything.
April 20th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Actually, Joe, anyone overstepping their authority is liable under the Constitution.
And, Mr. Sickle, conservatives are not the only politicos that distort definitions. If you don’t believe that, read a book on economics.
It seems like you all got off topic here a bit. It does take too much time, effort and information to prepare a tax return. It irks me and I would like to change it. I like the Fair Tax proposal to get the IRS off my back and get the government out of my business. Does that make me conservative or liberal?
April 20th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
It makes you basically a “conservative” IMO.