Spring has sprung, the showers have begun, and my attitude is glum. It’s tax time. I’ve procrastinated for over three months, but April 15 is approaching, and I’m in a foul mood.
So as March turns into April, I grit my teeth, take my blood pressure meds, and inform my wife that I’m doing our taxes. That’s her cue to grab some provisions and flee to the opposite end of the house, to avoid permanent hearing damage (I will be cursing).
Tax filing is a daunting, days-long task, because I refuse to pay someone else to do it for me. I cling to the belief that if everyone did their own taxes, we’d have a new set of elected “public servants,” and a flat tax after the next election. But alas, too many of my compatriots prefer to pay someone to insulate them from the mess that our government has created. But I keep doing my part – out of principle if nothing else.
First, I gather all the relevant documentation: tax statements, charitable donations, bank statements, loan statements, utility bills, appliance receipts, and retirement account statements. My next task is to figure out which pieces of that mountain of paper might be of interest to the IRS. Most of it seems intended to confuse me. While perusing the reams of paper, I remind myself not to forget to look on the back of every page. Sometimes the important stuff is printed on the back – as I learned one year after a helpful call from an IRS auditor.
Next, I need to figure out which of the IRS forms apply to me. Much to my chagrin, I learn that the taxman has over 800 different forms – and the inventory grows every year. Luckily, since I’m not filing taxes for Amazon or SpaceX, I only need 10-15 of those forms. That’s comforting until I realize that it’s up to me to find those 10-15 needles in the Treasury Department’s haystack.
After gathering everything I need to report my income to Uncle Sam, I inevitably learn that those forms appear to be encrypted in some language that only someone with an advanced degree in bullsh*t government finance can understand. I spend hours Googling terms like
- “Unrealized” – which I discover doesn’t mean “unreal,” and
- “Basis” – which means something completely different to an accountant than it does to an engineer.
After achieving fluency in bureaucratese, I begin making entries on the forms.
Naturally, filling out the forms isn’t a simple matter of transferring numbers from 1099 statements to the appropriate line on the form – these forms were created by the government after all. “User friendly” is not in the federal lexicon. I discover that most forms depend on one or more worksheets, which are found in IRS publications not included with the forms. Hours of data mining on the internet are required to locate and download the worksheets and instructions. After completing each worksheet, the answer is invariably: “You are not eligible for this deduction. Enter zero on line umptysquat of form whatev.”
But that’s just the beginning of the fun. After completing my 1040 and all the required schedules, the real sphincter tightening begins. Next, I must authorize a bank transfer and sign under the fine print that says:
Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined this return and accompanying schedules and statements, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, they are true, correct, and complete.
That “penalties of perjury” thingy causes my gut to spasm every year – I keep a bucket nearby. I cross my fingers and pop some antacid, hoping that I haven’t misunderstood any of the cryptic terminology or confusing forms, praying that God is still protecting the clueless, and eventually sign the forms. Oh well, if the IRS puts me in the slammer, I won’t have to file taxes next year. (Sorry honey, it’ll be your turn to refamiliarize yourself with your old Navy vocabulary.) Maybe I can be roomies with Bob Menendez in tax purgatory.
Once I’ve printed, copied, and mailed my 1040 (with a massive stack of supporting paper) I wonder: Why does the government make it so hard for me to send it money? Walmart doesn’t make me fill out a dozen forms and sign an affidavit to give it money. The only explanation I can come up with is that the government doesn’t have competition, so customer inconvenience isn’t a deal breaker for it. Of course that begs the question: What other government monopolies are as screwed up as tax filing?
Just as I put a stamp on the envelop, my relief at completing my annual duty is dashed, when I remember that now I need to do it all over again for my state taxes. Suddenly I have an epiphany. There isn’t a mass migration to Texas and Florida because they have no state income taxes, everybody’s moving because they don’t have any state income tax filing. Duh!
Just before I pour myself a bourbon to spend the rest of the evening wallowing in self-pity, I realize that it could be worse. I could be a DHS employee. Those poor bastards are going through the same process, to pay a government, which has stiffed them on their paychecks three times in the past year. That’s got to be a real gut-punch, and I doubt the DHS guys are comforted that the Senate hasn’t missed any of its paid vacations.
It has left me wondering: When does the revolution begin? I suspect sooner than later if the DHS guys bypass H&R Block this year and do their taxes themselves.
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/u
We MUST implement the Fair Tax immediately, if not sooner.
I feel your pain. I’m fairly easy. (have not itemized in years), I live in Texas, so no state income tax, and it’s still a pain in the ass. I do follow by electrons, and they’ll just steal, err draft the payment from my bank account.
But you asked a question why make this so complicated and someone made a point to me ages ago. What is the purpose of the US tax code? If we did this logically, it would be to raise the revenue needed for legitimate government purposes (that would cut down a lot of stuff). But he made the point, it is complicated so rich people will buy off members of the Congress and get exceptions for themselves. If it cost them a half million dollars to get an exemption to a 3000 page bill that saves them $10 million, money well spit.
Reagan made the point to Johnny Carson ages ago, “I have a degree in economics and I cannot file my taxes. Something is wrong.“ I like a lot of what Trump is doing, but I’d rather he move towards the break and model. Flatten the rates, limited deductions, simplify the code, pitting a lot of CPAs and tax attorneys out of business. 😛