First, there was Geithner with his late taxes. Big story on Capitol Hill. "Oh no! He doesn't pay his taxes properly! He can't be Mr Finance!"
Now we have Daschle and an amended return for taxes due to "value received" in terms of a car and driver. "Oh no! A second failure for Obama!"
You know what? Fuck all that. The root of the problem here is not people trying to stiff the government. It is not people trying to get out of taxes. The real problem? Taxes are too god-damned complicated.
These freakin' lawmakers want to point fingers at these candidates and hang them out to dry for tax problems. It has nothing to do with the actual payments... they're just being political bitches. Find a wound they can rub salt in. Grind it down.
You. Me. Those candidates. Any damned human in the United States is going to make mistakes on their taxes. And you know why? It is those same bitchy congressman poking at each other. They passed the laws. They made Tax Law this complicated.
Taxes are an Industry. You wanna know how much H&R Block makes? All those independent tax accountants and attorneys? Intuit with their TurboTax. And helluva lot more than I can mention here. It is a bajillion dollar industry. And that industry has lobbyists. They want to keep the taxes complicated. Those congressman are not going to make this crap any simpler.
Result? People make mistakes. Even those candidates. They're human.
(and no, I have no opinion on them; I'm just pissed off at the hypocracy of Congress pointing fingers at the candidates about their taxes, when it is Congress that made it impossible for any rational human to properly follow the tax code)
(real answer: flat tax. seriously.)
4 comments:
It's pretty sad that an entire industry exists to justify citizen's income to their government.
Man, I never thought I'd see a political post from you! Right on, brother. I'm with you.
Politically, I don't think a flat tax is fair. Pragmatically, I think it's exactly what we need. The intent of the progressive tax system was to increase taxes on people who earn more, but year after year, we find that that simply doesn't happen. If you're earning a whole lot, you have increased ability and incentive to hire someone to find the tax loopholes for you, to the point where there are plenty of wealthy Americans who simply don't pay any taxes at all. So at this point, I'm all for a dead-simple flat tax.
I would really like to see the fair tax pass. We need to get behind this. Check out www.fairtax.org.
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