It's Taxing

It’s Taxing

It is that time of year again. Polley and I gather scraps of paper, unopened envelopes with documents inside, and receipts from a variety of health care providers. Manila packages crammed with papers in our laps, we drive the slow, apprehensive-filled car ride to our tax accountant. It is a pilgrimage that is as old as time…or as least as old as civilizations that realized that some way had to be devised to pay for roads, water, and armies. Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem for the census which was, in part, for the collection of you-know-what.

The Romans taxed their populace 1% (in times of war as high as 3%), but, as the Republic grew and expanded its influence, Rome taxed only its provinces. To perform this odious duty, it hired “tax farmers” known as Publicani, rather like an ancient IRS. Shockingly, the Publicani became notorious for graft and corruption, and Rome had to resume its own tax collection.

Governments have figured out extraordinary ways to finance their functions.

To wit:

“Pecunia non olet or Money doesn’t stink!is a Latin saying. During the 1st century AD, Roman emperor Vaspasian placed a tax on urine. The buyer(s) of the urine paid the tax. The urine from public urinals was sold as an essential ingredient for several chemical processes e.g. it was used in tanning (not exactly sure how), and also by launderers as a source of ammonia to clean and whiten woolen togas etc.
During the Middle Ages, European governments placed a tax on soap. It remained in effect for a very long time.[perhaps explaining the need for perfume to cover the body odor] Great Britain didn’t repeal its soap tax until 1835.
In 1705, Russian Emperor Peter the Great placed a tax on beards, hoping to force men to adopt the clean-shaven look that was common in Western Europe.
In 1696, England implemented a window tax, taxing houses based on the number of windows they had. That led to many houses having very few windows in order to avoid paying the tax. Eventually this became a health problem and ultimately led to the tax’s repeal in 1851.
In 1795, England put a tax on the aromatic powders that men and women put on their wigs. This led to a dramatic decline in the popularity of wigs….[Phil Spector obviously does not mind a little wig tax]

Closer to home and in time:

New York City places a special tax on prepared foods, so sliced bagels are taxed once as food and again as prepared food, thus creating a sliced bagel tax.

Pennsylvania has a tax on coin-operated vacuum machines at gas stations.
Pittsburgh has a 5% amusement tax on anything that offers entertainment or allows people to engage in entertainment. [does that include blogs? Spoil sports!!!]

States like Iowa, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey exempt pumpkins from a sales tax but only if they will be eaten and not carved.
In 2005, Tennessee began requiring drug dealers to anonymously pay taxes on any illegal substances they sold.[“I was caught and sent to prison for selling drugs, but at least I paid my taxes…”]
In New Mexico, people over 100 years old are tax-exempt, but only if they are not dependents. [“Mom, dad, we are moving to New Mexico. You can come, too, but…”]
In Tennessee, there is a tax on all litigation. The amount varies case-by-case but it can be as low as $1 for a parking violation case. The tax tends to discourage frivolous lawsuits.
In Minnesota, there is a special tax on fur.[fur as clothing or fur on people? I knew a kid in gym class we all called “Sasquatch.”]
In 2014, the hit Netflix show, House of Cards, halted filming in the State of Maryland as film tax credits were expected to run out. The show received $11.6 million for its first season and $15 million for its second season. Filming resumed in June 2014. The production team placed House of Cards on hold while waiting for the outcome of two separate bills in the Maryland Legislature. According to the Maryland Film Industry Coalition, film production in the state has a “$400 million impact” on the economy.
In Wisconsin, cloth diapers are not subject to sales tax, but disposable diapers are.
In Texas, cowboy boots are exempt from the sales tax, but hiking boots are not.[ yippee kai o kai ay]
In Ohio, a corpse in a mortuary gets makeup applied on it without getting taxed, but a living person is taxed for the makeup that gets applied in a beauty salon.[I guess the IRS calculates it is not as difficult getting money from a live person than it is a corpse.]

https://www.efile.com/unusual-strange-funny-taxes-throughout-the-world-and-history/

As our car pulls into our accountant’s parking lot, I bemoan the fact that I cannot take advantage of any of the above deductions (except for the non-tax on corpse makeup—I am a sensible man). As a relatively young man, teacher, father of four with a home mortgage, I had many more deductions. I could complete my own tax form. Then things got complicated. Our children attended college, and figuring out the tax code became more problematic for me. So, based on several recommendations, we hired our current accountant. One day in April, while I watched him pecking away on three keyboards in front of what seemed like twenty computer monitors, and rifling through our piles of crumpled receipts from pharmacies and home improvements like Sinks Are Us, I confessed that as an English major I was embarrassed that I could not interpret or even read the tax filing. After all, as a college student I read engineering texts that would have bored and put to sleep a raging bull in heat and on amphetamines. He turned in his swivel chair and said, “The tax codes are not designed for you to understand.” We like our accountant.

Many years ago I watched a representative from the IRS being interviewed on a talk show. Steely faced and fitting the stereotypical cold image of an IRS agent, he freely admitted that it was easier to intimidate the “average Joe” for a few hundred bucks than to go after major corporations who owed millions in taxes. “Companies like GM can afford more lawyers than the Federal government can,” explained the agent. “So we focus on John Q.” Oh.

And I really can’t complain about paying what I should pay. Despite all our bellyaching about taxes, we are taxed at much lower rates than many other countries—“No, the U.S. is not a high-tax country. But saying exactly how not-high-tax we are gets a little tricky. It[a graph] shows personal tax rates on $100,000 around the world. The U.S. comes in at 55th out of 114.” 55^th! https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/how-low-are-us-taxes-compared-to-other-countries/267148/

For those who are curious, here are the nations with the highest taxes:

United Kingdom. …
Japan
Austria
Belgium
Netherlands
Denmark
Sweden

Aruba. With its 58.95% income tax rate, Aruba, a constituent member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, currently has the world’s highest taxes. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=us+taxes+compared+to+other+countries&*

Aruba? Really?

So I do not mind paying my fair share. That does not mean I do not have complaints. I do. My two gripes that really get under my skin are related. The first peeve involves people who complain the most about paying taxes and who also complain the most about the lack of services. “There should be more TSA inspectors so the security lines at airports are shorter.” “Why didn’t the FDA discover the contaminated yogurt I just ate?” “That bridge collapsed right under me. Somebody should be fired!” All the agencies we depend on for our safety and protection are paid for by taxes. We want the services without paying for them…..like education. I expect that when I drive over a bridge on an interstate highway that I will reach the other side, and, if I have an accident, there will be a state trooper in the area to assist. I am comforted by the fact that if one of my grandchildren swallows something he/she shouldn’t, the National Center for Poison Control is a phone call away. I feel more secure knowing that enforcement agencies, though underfunded, do exist. And I am grateful that when I need to recharge my psychic batteries, I can inhale the fresh, pure air of a National Park. All these things cost money, so I pay my taxes.

My second complaint involves displaced outrage. Many of my fellow Americans rant and rave when abuses of the system are committed—but only if they are committed by the poor and defenseless. The welfare recipient who squeezes fifty bucks from a Section 8 benefit, or the immigrant who does not kick in twenty tax dollars from his or her slave wages (by the way, most immigrants pay taxes) are the targets of venom spit by taxpayers who exhibit a moral outrage at these offenses. These red-faced countrymen cannot stand the fact that “these people cheat.” But they are not offended by the fact that some of the richest Americans pay fewer, if any, taxes than they do. Or that General Motors pays less than they do. I don’t get it. It is like throwing a fit that a poor person who robs a candy store of ten bucks escapes jail, but not getting upset when the banking industry swipes billions from hard working Americans and gets away with it. Apparently there is another set of standards of morality that applies to the wealthy who pay no taxes. Or maybe it is not economic distinctions that are at the root of this discrepancy, but something else……

Even high ranking American officials in government who don’t pay their fair share of taxes are not rankling my fellow citizens. “They’re just taking advantage of the tax laws.” But what they don’t pay has to be made up by John Q’s like me…..and you. And they enjoy the same services without shelling out a dime. Where’s the outrage? So how do the excessively wealthy freeloaders get away with it?

As ancient Rome self-imploded due to corruption, internal squabbling and civic apathy, Roman emperors diverted the people’s attention away from the important stuff by holding “circuses.” Nothing like forgetting about the collapse of roads and the “barbarians” at the gate by spending an afternoon at the coliseum watching gladiatorial combat or the sacrifice of Christians. The tactic hasn’t changed. The modern media gobbles up and highlights political blusters and accusations and we all follow along the next juicy if irrelevant story. The real issues that affect our lives are lost in the hype. It’s taxing, people….it really is.

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