Nothing is Certain Except Death and Taxes

I finished my yearly duty of filing my taxes tonight. I have two bones to pick with the world, and contrary to the bones people normally pick this time of year it has nothing to do with how much I paid. In fact it's quite the opposite.

Bone 1: It's really not that hard. I don't fully understand why people act like it's brain surgery. You make a certain amount which gives you how much you paid in taxes up to this point. You are allowed to claim a certain amount of deductions as defined by the numerous tax papers, or as easily determined by the 20 questions you play with TurboTax (or the like). And you subtract those two numbers. Why that is considered confusing is beyond me. Now if you are trying to get out of paying the taxes that are due perhaps it can become confusing - lying tends to work that way. But if you are just reporting what you paid, what you'd like to not pay on and subtracting the difference it's really not that tough. And you can pay someone a nominal fee or do it yourself with a little help for a nominal fee just to make sure you do it right. So, in conclusion, my first bone to pick with the world is stop complaining about how difficult taxes are - just tell the truth and pay the difference.

Bone 2: It's really not that much. Now, this is obviously a subjective statement, but let's take me for example. Sandor and I payed a bit over to $5000 in taxes this year (yeah we don't make a lot as you can see). After deductions we got about $2500 back, which means jointly we paid about $2500 to the government in the course of a year. Now, honestly, you cannot tell me that in one year we did not use our fair share of roads built using that money, or live in a land protected by an army paid by that money, or live in a country with strong environmental laws all supported by that money...I could go on. Is $2500 really all that much to give my government every year? Now I realize that if I make more I'd be giving the government more, but it will be the same percentage, give or take a bit. Even a the highest tax bracket it is really not that high of a percentage if you look at other countries. And if you are in that high tax bracket you are probably one of those people that pays someone to find ways for you to not pay the government (which in my opinion is just a legal way to lie, but I'll hold off on going into that for now). I personally feel that if you look at what you get for the amount of taxes you pay, most people will see that at the very least you got something - which is more than what you can say about a lot of things in the world we pay for...like insurance for instance.

I'm certain that I'm going to get a whole lot of complaints about my oversimplified view of taxes but in reality we can learn a lot about how worthless our complaints are if we simplify things every once and a while, rather than trying to discuss every single exemption and possible outlyer. Just pay your taxes and then get involved in the political process by which our country decides how to use the money it takes in. And as a side note if you didn't pay them last year or aren't paying them this year I feel you have very little standing on which to complain about how the country's money has been/will be spent.