Tax Time!!

Greetings!

     Happy Tax Time! Our tax filing deadline is quickly approaching. I hope that you got a big tax refund and that it’s already in the bank.  Speaking of taxes…how do you feel about the portion of your income that you send to Uncle Sam? Most people I know are “none too happy”. I think we all question the wisdom of some of the spending decisions and feel that a lot of money is being wasted. I wish Congress would give full budget authority to a group of eight or ten West Texas farmers. They could go through the budget line by line and change anything that didn’t make sense. If that happened, we’d not only have a GREAT farm bill, but we could balance the budget in a New York minute.

     It seems that political people on both sides of the aisle are waking up to the fact that we have a spending problem. Once the majority of the public comes to that same realization, then we will have some meaningful reform. I do know what would bring about an overnight tax revolt. If the majority of the public payed their taxes the same way self-employed folks do, there would be rioting in the streets. As employees, people are accustomed to seeing a little piece come out of every payroll check. It’s like having a wound that oozes blood. The wound bleeds constantly, but not real bad. However, most self employed people make estimated quarterly tax payments. This means that four times a year they sit down and write a sizable check that should represent 25% of their tax liability. This is NOT perceived as an oozing wound, but rather an arterial bleed that could result in death. In other words, a wound that is worthy of a tourniquet. Whoever thought up the system of having employers collect taxes from their employees was pretty smart. That system is not only efficient, but it lulls taxpayers into never feeling the full impact of their total tax bill. It’s kind of like the story of the frog in the cook pot. The frog never feels the incremental increase in the temperature of the water until it’s so hot it cooks him.

I guess I could gripe all day. However, when all the dust settles I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the work, high taxes or not. God Bless the USA!