It is an old cliché that there are two things no one can escape in this world—death and taxes. Governments throughout history have supported themselves with taxes from their citizens. The Bible references taxation in several places. Jesus was born while his earthly parents were on a journey to be counted in a census in response to a decree that all the world should be taxed. One of Jesus’ disciples was a tax collector. Zacchaeus, who climbed a sycamore tree the Lord for to see, was a tax collector.
Every student of American history is aware that one of the things that outraged the colonists was the mother country’s taxation without representation. Now we have taxation with representation, and there are those who argue that possibly more thought needs to be given to the type of representation being received.
There are many who rejoice that they receive huge tax refunds. These people cannot wait to file their tax returns to receive their wonderful windfalls. What they fail to realize is that they are merely receiving the money that the government has kept from them throughout the previous year by taxation enforced through legislation. The government is returning a portion of these funds to these hard-working people, after, of course, the government has benefitted from the interest made from the taxes withheld.
Then there are those who not only pay taxes throughout the work year. They file their returns to find out that more taxes are due the government than they paid throughout the year. How do tax preparers tell taxpayers to avoid having to pay additional tax? Simply request on the W-9 that an additional amount be withheld from each paycheck to cover the additional tax the government will require.
Is that adding insult to injury? What it comes down to in my humble opinion is that taxes are a necessary evil. When there is a choice of whether to pay additional taxes to receive a refund or to use my money throughout the year and be allowed to draw interest from my hard-wrought wages before I “render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s”, I might feel more empowered, until I remember another certainty. If I draw interest on my money, the government taxes the interest as well! Does the government ever have to pay taxes on its interest earned?
The tax system can be extremely complicated. I used to file my own tax returns. The last couple of years I filed on my own I received a letter from the IRS that informed me that I had underestimated the amount due me. I was amazed! How very nice of the IRS to be so forthcoming.
That is exactly why I no longer file my own returns. If I am not capable of accurately estimating the amount due me, how easy might it be to miscalculate in the opposite direction?
There are those who make mistakes on their taxes. There are also those who interpret the tax preparation directions in a different manner than the IRS. Perhaps nothing is worse than being deemed guilty when convinced of innocence, especially when it costs money.
Consider a gentleman who completed an advanced college degree. He went to a well-known tax preparer for assistance in filing federal income taxes. As did many of his classmates, he declared his educational expenses as a deduction. Both his tax advisor and he agreed that per the instructions this was allowable.
The gentleman was aggravated, not frightened, when he received notification that he was being audited. He was so (over)confident that he was right that he did not even discuss the audit with his tax advisor but went it alone (lesson one—never be confident when tax audits are involved).
He conducted himself to the decreed location on a street named for an insect (most appropriate, he later determined, as he felt plagued) for his interview (interrogation). He was late because he could not find a parking place (lesson two—never be late when facing the government).
His apology went unacknowledged, the first clue that he would suffer for the fifteen-minute delay. The second clue was that his assigned auditor had one of the few office cubicles with corner walls, and on one of those walls was a plaque the agent had received for uncovering the most tax fraud in a prior year. He was stricken to know that a government agency would use tax dollars to award its employees for presumably doing their jobs. He was soon to discover the agent hadn’t lost the touch in the ensuing years since receiving the award. The agent’s given name had a pleasant connotation, though the personality was antithetical, more reminiscent of fingernails grating on a chalkboard.
The agent began by asking several questions designed to gather information. It was deduced that the taxpayer had properly filed as head of household and that his deductions were legitimate claims. Unfortunately, the agent determined that the taxpayer’s educational expense was disallowed, as the degree had qualified him for a new profession. The argument that he was still in the education profession with a different assignment met with a sarcastic, “IT’S A MATTER OF INTERPRETATION!”
The agent smugly told the preparer that he could appeal to tax court, though the taxpayer at that moment wasn’t going to be fined interests and penalties as an “honest mistake” had been made. Should the taxpayer go to tax court and be found guilty, then he would be assessed interest, penalties, and court costs.
I suppose the taxpayer in a roundabout way paid penalties anyway. He paid credit card interest on the $1,000 he was required to repay. The agent consoled the taxpayer by relating a tale of an elderly couple who had to pay thousands of dollars on their farm itemization. When the taxpayer asked how the “poor old people” managed to pay, the agent smiled a true “Grinch’s” smile and said, “They did.”
To add insult to injury, our poor taxpayer found a $5 parking ticket on his windshield as the parking meter expired while he was being “interpreted”.
The lyrics to the introduction of a very short running sit-com from my youth called Beat the System come to mind:

It’s hard to lick the US government,
They’re taxing us and taking every cent,
The money comes and goes, and before you even know,
That here it was a coming, there it went.

Good luck with your taxes, Dear Reader. I leave you with two quotes from the late great James G. Shumate. In the same algebra class he made these two statements: “Get you a nice dad-blamed government job. Uncle Sam’ll take care of you.” A few minutes later, “You’ve got to watch Uncle Sam, he’ll cheat you!”

ANSWER TO QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 6
What do you call workers who put together kitchen cabinets? COUNTERFEITER.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 7
What did the bank robbers go when their bag was full of money? (See next week’s article for the answer.)