Tax Season: It’s like Christmas for Accountants and Those Who Like to See Others Suffer.

Liberty Tax Service sign with Woman in Lady Liberty costume

Tax Season is here. It’s like a sick twisted fantasy time for people who love government forms. Accounting Firms, Tax software companies and rich congress elite all get gleeful. AOC will wear her favorite “Tax the Rich” dress to some gala for the rich. Then be almost murdered by her own taxes because she is in fact rich. Most of you probably agree that taxes are a gigantic Donkey Turd on all of us. In fact virtually all Americans in the middle class, who actually pay taxes, agree they hate them. But let’s talk about why, so we can relish in the joys of the season.

Let’s start with the obvious it costs all of us money. If you are like us, you pay sales tax, social security tax. medicare tax, medidon’tcare tax, property taxes and 85+ state and local registration taxes. This ranges for right to run a business, to owning a gun, down to car registration and probably a sticker to own a bike. That all being said for now we can go to leave the state and local taxes behind here to focus on the grandest bull of all income tax.

Happy Tax Season

Until the 16th Amendment income tax was illegal, they literally had to change the constitution to allow it. I am sure the founding fathers would have loved it. Do you feel like yelling “No taxation, Without Representation!” Remember there is a reason they want to confiscate your guns. The British were doing that in the 1770 as well if you look at the history.

Somewhere between the end of January and April 15th is tax season. This is created to help distract us from how much winter sucks; that and on a side note to take our money. Literally every hour you work, regardless of what you do with the money, the federal government gets a cut. They spend it how they want. Are you against how they spend money on Wars, Abortion, Vaccines, Drag Queen Story Time, etc.? They don’t care, screw you, pay me, they say.

Each year in this magical tax season, they pretend to give us a small moment to fight back and say hey I shouldn’t have been taxed so much. We then get the joy of wasting our time filling out proper forms and if you are lucky, you get some back. This is because you can’t be double taxed or you are given a special research credit, or you are a LBTQ+ illegal minority so don’t have to pay. The whole 70,000-page tax code is social engineering giving benefits to whatever pet project congress likes that year. The sick part about all this is that the rich pay some accountant to avoid the taxes, the illegals don’t file, and you the average American pays the difference.

Let’s do some math for fun. Let’s say you are well off and make $100,000 a year and pay 20% in taxes so 20,000 a year. You pay an accountant to save you 10% on your taxes it saves you $2,000. If someone makes $1,000,000 with the same formula, they save $20,000 a year. The problem is for most of us paying for tax avoidance isn’t worth it. So, the rich pay some tax genius to save them money while you use turbo tax and hope for the best. Trump proved this with his tax returns, that Democrats released. We are not sure what this proves other than we all knew it. Trump didn’t break the law; Income Taxes are BS and Democrats couldn’t convict him of anything, so they tried to embarrass him. No such Luck.

To add insult to injury there is an entire tax industry. Needless to say, H&R block, Liberty Taxes and Intuit (who is the owner of Turbo Tax) have strong lobbies in Washington. They are far from the worst. Most major companies have huge contracts with accounting companies to help them avoid taxes. These worthless tax companies literally produce nothing of value, no goods, products or food, they literally produce nothing but tax compliance and avoidance.

If all this is not enough to make your blood boil, they have 87,000 new IRS agents to make sure they suck ever last dollar out of you. Thank you, Inflation reduction act.

Now I save the best or worst for last. 1 of 2 things happens

You get to write a check to the government for not paying enough estimated taxes. You literally make a guess and hope you picked the right numbers based on what you thought would happen. It you are wrong by enough you get to pay penalties and interest. If you are wrong enough the other way, The government keeps your money gives you no interest. They try to make it better for you with a big refund check. We are excited to fill out useless forms to get back our own money. Money that never should have been taken in the first place. Meanwhile the IRS laughs as it says, “I am paying you back with your money“. As a special bonus if you don’t ask them for the money, they keep it. These same people just print money right and left until we hit the debt ceiling and then say it is not enough. Enjoy the festive season.

Image From: “Lady Liberty” (CC BY 2.0) by Donald Lee Pardue