Scott Wells is a history juniorSend comments to: WorldWelder@aol.com
Everyone get out a sheet of paper. (I’m not kidding!) It’s examtime in Reality 101. Please pay close attention to the instructions.Your grade depends on it.
Anyone caught cheating will be fined, imprisoned, have theirproperty confiscated or all three.
Before you begin, fold your sheet of paper into thirds as youwould a business letter. Tear the top third off and throw it into thetrash. Go ahead, we’ll wait. Please don’t litter; I would hate to seeyou fined for it.
OK, now take the remaining two-thirds of a page and fold eachthird in half. You should now have four small sections. Tear off thetop fourth of the remaining section and mark it with “S/L.” Youshould be left with about half of a normal sheet of paper.
Now,tear off one the other remaining three sections and mark it with”other.”
Everyone still with me?
You are now ready to begin. Fully answer the question:
“Do you pay too much in taxes?”
Your answer to the following question must be thorough andcomplete. It must fill an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and mustbe written on the scrap of paper you have remaining. Additional papermay not be used for the exam.
Sound impossible?
You do it every day.
Think of it this way: The full sheet of paper you started withrepresents your full income over a year. This is what you make beforetaxes. The first third you ripped off and threw away was what youpaid in federal income taxes. That means for every $30,000 you make,you can expect the IRS to take $10,000.
The second slice you tore off and labeled “S/L” is about what youwill pay in state and local taxes. The remaining slice marked “other”represents what you pay in regulatory fees and invisible taxes, suchas when you register your car, or your Social Security deduction.
The strip you are left with is what you have to spend on all yourexpenses throughout the year. After this exercise, it should beobvious that the government is taking far too many taxes. Especiallyfor an entity that doesn’t actually produce an income of its own, butinstead operates on the money it confiscates from those who work.
If that weren’t bad enough, in the age of smoke-and-mirror federalsurpluses the current administration has worked hard to prevent eventhe most meager tax relief. The president did, however, propose weforgive billions of dollars of foreign loans.
In addition, he wants to expand the amount the federal governmentis spending with new entitlement programs. He won’t give it back tothose of us who worked hard for it, but he will give it to everyoneelse.
The president’s Robin Hood complex is a bold admission of whatmany Americans know to be true. The tax system works against itscitizens and needs desperately to be brought back under control.
The best way to start is to scrap the current tax code for a morereasonable and equitable system. If the world were ideal, which itisn’t, then we would take the amount of revenue necessary to run thegovernment each year, add the national debt to it, and divide by 248million.
Since that isn’t realistic, we should institute a national salestax, which has several benefits. One, it taxes the undergroundeconomy as equally as it does legitimate workers. Two, it encouragessavings. And three, it will force us to evaluate the price and sizeof government each time we go to the cash register. Unlike with thecurrent withholding system, it will be obvious just how far Uncle Samis reaching into our pockets.
Realizing this is a common sense approach to taxes that would go along way toward eliminating the class warfare that many politiciansexploit to survive, and it would encourage the government to shrinkto its constitutionally mandated size, it’s easy to see why this issuch a big stumbling block for many politicians.
They like stealing and spending with stealth via the withholdingand refund scam.
This column is the opinion of the columnist and not The DailyAztec.
