Someone should stage a public reading of the U.S. tax code

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”—Robert A. Heinlein

The instruction package online at IRS for form 1040 runs 100 pages. (Screen snip from IRS website)Every April, it’s the same. I spend hours gathering information, trying to interpret often obscure instructions on the IRS website. Before we can even file our return, I have to make sure all the pieces and documentation are there. Our return is complicated by my small (incredibly struggling) business and by the occasional sale of small amounts of stock.

I’ll never forget the year we sold some stock to cover our older daughter’s wedding. Taxed already on the company’s end, the amount we netted was taxed again.

Really, America, is this the best we can do?

FreedomWorks said the Internal Revenue Service employed 90,647 people in 2008—by the time ObamaCare is in full swing, we’ll have thousands more working there, all of them health cops to make sure everyone who’s accountable pays for his or her health insurance. Illegal aliens,  untrackable citizens and those who fly under the radar will escape the penalty.

The Tax Foundation said the tax code is now 3.8 million words long. I’d be willing to bet if you asked the chair of any committee that oversees taxes in Congress how many pages of regulations there are, the member would not be able to answer the question.

I hear a lot from the Left about everyone getting a “fair share.” Aside from the pure political baloney in that phrase, it seems to me that the first place to start if you’re interested in real fairness is to tackle the concept of giving away taxpayer money to people who don’t pay any taxes at all. The Tax Foundation also noted:

“21 million filers took the refundable child credit, and they received $27 billion from the IRS despite having paid no income taxes.”

Think about that figure—21 million filers got $27 Billion even though they paid no income taxes.

The Tax Foundation also noted Americans roll 7 billion hours into tax compliance each year.

Someone should stage a public reading of this code—it’d be a marathon for sure. Seems to me you could block up the code to groups in each state and live stream it on the Web.

It might be necessary to have some entertainment in the background. Get some entertainers to help, at least those who are sympathetic to small government concepts. That means forget people like Springsteen and Bono.

You could make a pretty hefty point by publicly airing the best example of tyranny in the land, conferred by the people we elected to represent us.

A final figure to digest. The Tax Foundation said:

"26 million filers took the refundable earned income tax credit, and they received $56 billion from the IRS despite having paid no income taxes."

Someone should ask our 'Fair Share' president how, exactly, is that fair to those of us in the middle class who pay taxes?

(Commentary by Kay B. Day/April 16, 2012)

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