“You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth.” – The Matrix
I’ve always wondered what clothes cost in The Matrix. These three could have told me, but I forgot to ask them before I moved away from Alaska.
I’ve just finished stapling my tax return together for the year 2017. Why did the tax return cross the road? John Wilder stapled it to the chicken.
I can’t (generally) do my taxes before the first week in April because, like Ben Franklin said, the only two certain things are death and taxes. And I’m certain I like to wait, because:
- I’m lazy and
- I don’t get all the information for one investment until mid-March.
I really hate doing taxes, but, thankfully, an entire tax software industry exists only to allow us to do them ourselves on a Sunday afternoon. Yes. I started on Sunday afternoon after I’d taken one of the cars in to get fixed. As in today. I’m not only lazy, I do everything I can to put off taxes to the last possible minute.
Generally, as the envelopes with “IMPORTANT: TAX INFORMATION” show up I clip them all together and pretend they don’t exist for 70 or so days, so I’ve been preparing for doing the taxes for a while. My information isn’t all that complicated, so I’ve managed to do it myself for, well, ever.
Taxes are more complicated than time travel or Doc Brown’s hairstyle.
How does doing taxes change my mood? The Mrs. says that I have three personalities, and generally, she’s right:
- Juan Délegator – Juan is general me around the house. My general motto is: if someone else (like my kids) can do it, they should do it. Why? To make them capable. No, I won’t make them run 480 volt 3-phase power to my flux capacitor, but I will make them do dishes. And I will make them do things that they are capable of and uncomfortable with. Why? So, like Conan, “they will be strong when the wolves come.” Juan is pretty easy-going. And why not? The work is getting done.
- The General – The General is like Juan, but The General comes out when time is of the essence – like our house is going to catch on fire due to my poor wiring of the flux capacitor. The General is commanding, and expects immediate obedience and compliance, due to the consequences of not taking that immediate action. The General doesn’t care how you feel, but wants to end the emergency as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Movie reference: The Wolf from Pulp Fiction®.
- The Nazi – The Nazi is like The General. But isn’t having fun. And The Nazi kind of wants you to suffer. Only one thing (really) brings out The Nazi (anymore).
Me when I’m enjoying myself the most . . . fixing bad things in a hurry. Pretty please.
This year (I have to say) wasn’t that bad. Most of the time I get worried that, since I’m doing the taxes on the last possible day prior to them being due, that I’ll find myself without some key piece of information.
Not this year. I have it all, or I did after I looked in a stack of papers on the bedroom. Whew.
So, I entered the information required by the program.
And this year TurboTax® downloaded my work information directly from my employer. Also nice. Not that I’m a huge fan of TurboTax© – they are, at best, a necessary evil. Doing a meaningless task well is still meaningless. Without taxation, fully 20% (my guess) of the economy could be used for more productive things . . . overnight. TurboTax© programmers could program video games. Or something. The IRS™ could do what they would naturally aspire to do, form covens and attempt to steal souls actually produce something in the economy.
And the process of doing taxes today are (largely) meaningless for the average taxpayer. For the average payer, the IRS already has all of the information necessary to send the taxpayer a bill. They already know my income. My interest payments (to and from me, which are getting closer to equal!) and they know how much I made (or lost) off of my stocks. They know if I bought or sold a house.
But the process of taxes is, at least partially, immoral.
Yes. Immoral.
Let me tell a story . . .
I used to go to church when visiting Pop Wilder – it was the same church that I’d grown up going to coloring pictures of Jesus. True conversation, from when I was about five:
Sunday School Teacher: “Johnny, Jesus wasn’t purple.”
Little Johnny Wilder: “Isn’t Jesus God?”
Sunday School Teacher: “Yes, He is.”
Little Johnny Wilder: “Then he could be purple if he wanted to be.”
It was a small church in a small town. Pop would go every Sunday, and when I was around, I’d go with him. One morning, the Pastor gave a sermon that made my circuits pop.
He used the concept and example of Christian charity in his sermon. But in every verse I could find, that charity referred to voluntary giving. Here? The Pastor was wanting to have increased taxpayer spending going to the poor – and indicated that, somehow, this equated to charity.
I sat on the pew, seething, which, generally isn’t very appropriate for a church, but neither was his sermon, which violated the following principles:
Taxes are forced – there’s nothing moral about them.
Charity is given of free will – there’s no coercion other than moral coercion. You have to make a choice to give to charity.
And that’s what made me mad. Charity – the act of giving time or money to someone else, is important for the soul. Government services have nearly completely destroyed the idea of charity – why help the homeless? Government should be doing that. Why feed hungry children? Government should be helping them. Folks drowning in Canada due to all the hockey rinks melting? Government should fix the rinks, because Canadians can’t swim!!
Since government is already fixing the problem people don’t think that there’s the need for charity. Since I already give federal, state, and local governments over 45% of my income directly, and indirectly pay for the corporate income taxes on every item I buy and Social Security kicks on another 15%, I figure the government is already into me for 65%-75% or more of what I make.
That thought doesn’t leave me feeling charitable. And that’s the immoral part. Giving charity makes me a better person, inside, where it counts. Feeling uncharitable because my money has been forcibly taken from me and to (many people and groups) that I feel undeserving, well, that’s immoral. Charity is good. But Jesus certainly didn’t say, “Go forth, and haveth ye government arresteth ye brothers and ye sisters who give not 75% of yon incomes to others.”
And I didn’t feel charitable when the Pastor was asking the congregation to take more of my money. Honestly, it’s not greedy to want to keep some of your money. But I feel that there is truly nothing greedier than asking forcing others to pay for things that you want to do, but don’t have the money for. I mean, I’d love to have a great treehouse, complete with air conditioning and plumbing.
Now there are legitimate reasons for taxation – common defense. Courts. Common infrastructure. But there isn’t enough money in the world to pay for everyone’s “needs” – and payment for everyone’s wants would bankrupt the planet.
Taxes were complicated this year. The parts that I have to file and send are about 40 pages, but I’ve learned printing off the federal and sending them to the state makes life easier. By the time that I’d printed the copies I’ll send plus the spare copies, I had printed out 160 pages. I’ll send 120 pages out, plus a pretty big check. I don’t mind sending 120 pages out, or even the check. Heck, all the dollar bills I have say they belong to the Federal Reserve® already, right?
No refund. But I won’t burn the place down. Or try to get my stapler back.
I’m just sad that they make us pay taxes in the Matrix. But, the clothes don’t cost all that much here . . . .
And Neo lives forever. I guess the whole “Death and Taxes” must just be . . . taxes.
