Tax Day, 2024

Today is April 15th, 2024, the day on which most American citizens will have to have paid their federal taxes on "incomes, from whatever source derived."* It's a day most of us hate, but it represents - together with voting - one of the fundamental duties of responsible citizenship ... sharing in the costs and mechanisms of good government.

In modern America, paying your taxes isn't easy. Nor is voting in many places, for that matter. This year, as I've done every year for decades, I spent many hundreds of dollars to pay a professional to calculate my taxes and file all the appropriate paperwork to keep me out of jail. This amount is deductible on my taxes if I itemize my deductions ... but, like most middle- and lower-class Americans, I don't have enough total deductions to itemize. Unfortunately, one has to do all the byzantine calculations to determine whether or not itemization is possible. Over the years, most deductions that benefit average citizens** have been whittled away or eliminated by Congress in an attempt to make up for the tax cuts benefiting businesses and the very wealthy - those who are able to shape the tax laws to their advantage by the strategic use of donations to the right parties and politicians.

I've written about the unfairness and idiocy of our tax system many times in this space, but as a (relatively) low-fixed-income senior citizen, my voice doesn't rise above the din of outrage raised by those who pay virtually nothing in taxes and wish to pay less. You may want to remember, when you cast your vote in November, that there are a lot of people paying vast amounts of money to once again elect Der Furor and other Republicans because they promise "tax cuts." Just read the fine print and understand it's not your taxes that are being cut.

Have a good day. I hope it won't be too ... taxing. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* According to the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1913. The Amendment itself is two lines long. Today's tax code is millions of lines long. Go figure.

** Such as interest on consumer loans and credit cards, and medical expenses. And consider that a billionaire can deduct many expenses related to his/her private jet, but a teacher who has to spend her/his own money on a classroom not properly funded by local government has to just eat those expenses and smile.