It’s Tax Time Again

 Rats! It’s tax time again.

 Of course, with all the rules and regulations, payments and estimated payments, pre-payments and governmentally-approved extortion payments (the preceding is the opinion of the writer of this column and should not be construed as to express in any way the opinions of . . .), it’s always tax time in one way or another. Even after you die, it’s quite possible to have your estate pilfered postmortem. Legal? Yes. Wrong? Utterly (but the preceding opinion should not be construed . . . Well, you know).

I know any government needs money to run. I know that no one will ever agree with all of the ways his or her government spends every tax dollar.

Did you hear that some university recently did a study and figured out how to decode some of the various emotions displayed by the various grunts of various pigs? They could have saved that money (surely some of it came in the form of government grants) and let me use the porkers and/or the dollars for bacon. Then I could either grunt my approval, or they could just ask.

Personally, I think our system is ridiculous, ridiculously complicated, and even nefarious.  Too many naive people who pay taxes only through “withholding” (that’s the garnishing of your wages) think that their “tax refund” is a gift from the government. Add to that the class struggles politicians exacerbate with tax talk manipulation.

I am not a historian, as will soon be clear, but it seems that the income tax (which didn’t amount to much in 1913 when it was enacted) was turned into a monster after Prohibition. Increased tax on income enabled Prohibition because the government could use the income tax to more than make up for the 11 billion dollars the Eighteenth Amendment cost them. (If you talk about organized crime and a scad of other evils, it was costly indeed.)

Personally, I’m such a fossil that I doubt it should be any of the government’s business how much or how little money any of us make. Yes, I know how much of our system and social programs are built on that. Believe me, I’m learning more about Social Security, Medicare, etc.

But we really have grown and fed an out-sized monster. I’ve got a suggestion or two for reform, most of which would be considered impractical or “regressive.”

I am patriotic. A lot. But enjoying paying taxes or wanting to pay more than is legally necessary does not a patriot make. It’s a taxing task to spend the crazy amounts of time I devote to just getting my tax records ready to go to my tax professional (and friend). Just think how much productivity our whole nation wastes in this effort. Insane.

I found myself watching some episodes of Air Disasters while doing the mind-numbing part. Plane crashes seem to go well with the whole thing.

For sure, I’m incredibly thankful for our nation.

I have a job and financial blessings and can pay taxes. I’m glad; I’m just surly right now.

And, yes, I hear about billionaires who pay almost no taxes. Not right. But just as bad, I think, is that the IRS would allow any citizen’s tax records to be leaked, as recently happened. Not right.

All that said, if it’s possible to legally pay less tax than you do now—I mean, truly legal and skirting no laws at all—is it praiseworthy to pay more than you are required to? I think not. If the laws need to be changed, they need to be changed. Until then, they are what they are, and we all just have to deal with it.

The late Charles Krauthammer (I loved his columns) once wrote, basically, that all you need to know to have a basic understanding of how liberals and conservatives in our country see each other is to realize this truth: conservatives think liberals are dumb and liberals think conservatives are cruel.

So maybe in this column I’ve managed to be both dumb and cruel. Maybe.

I just know that I’d rather be singing or writing or reading—or having a root canal—than doing accounting for the government.

But I know this: Christ made his opinion on taxes quite clear. Take a look at Matthew 22:21. Caesar gets what Caesar gets. Our true King wants his people to be good citizens of their earthly kingdoms.

Now take a look at a very literally fishy tax story. Matthew 17:27.

I would very much like to have more than a few of those fish.

You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2022 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

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