The U.S. tax code is insane and out of control. It’s tripled in a decade. It now runs to 3.8 million words. To put that in context, William Shakespeare only needed 900,000 words to say everything he had to say. Hamlet. Othello. The history plays. The sonnets. The whole shebang. But the IRS needs four times as many words? Really?
The American tax code is even less understandable than Shakespeare, in spite of the fact that the latter (blah blah blah, Joe Sobran, I know) wrote in Elizabethian English, which is now so foreign that half of it practically needs translation.
This part, I grokketh not:
The average family probably spends $10,000 a year on their cars. They spend thousands on cell phone bills and cable TV. We think nothing of paying $2.50 for bottled water and $5 for a cup of coffee with a fancy name. We stand in line to replace last year’s iPhone with this year’s iPhone, and the fashion industry has no problem selling $300 shoes.
But when it comes to paying a dollar in taxes, we scream absolute murder. It’s an outrage! It’s a con! Look at all the waste! Nobody likes paying taxes, and our nation was founded on a tax revolt, but can we please get a grip?
Actually, it’s the other way around. In my experience, people get more worked up over a bank fee than all the taxes they owe.
