Babeled On: Tax Evasion

A letter from Jack to the Babelonians.

The first Tuesday of April brings about yet another chapter in the Babeled On series. Once a month, a topic is pondered in total isolation by each Babeler in a virtual sit-down. Answers are submitted confidentially via email until finally, on the first Tuesday of the month, he who was tagged compiles the responses and shares the wisdom nonsense for all to see.  As his final duty, the author will pass the torch when he tags another Babeler who will continue the cycle in the following month.

April is the dreaded month in which Uncle Sam reminds us just how much of our money he will waste this year.  As those who manipulate the system to their benefit go free, those loyal citizens dig deeper into an ever more shallow wallet.  In celebration of the most superfluous, complicated, and unnecessary mountain of bureaucracy and paperwork, what better topic to Babel on than Tax Evasion?

Greg Molyneux

Death and taxes. Life’s most cherished certainties. Generally speaking no one enjoys / likes / wants to pay taxes, yet it is our duty to do so. It is a matter of principle that we should, to the best of our abilities, pay the government in a timely and accurate manner. Of course honest mistakes will be made along the way and the IRS will be sure to kindly inform you of your indiscretion and hedonist ways.

For the clever rats who willingly seek to evade their taxes and balk at their civic duties, I say woe unto thee. Why is it that honest hard-working Americans manage to properly pay their taxes at the most exorbitant rate, yet the well-financed politically connected members of our society (mobsters excluded) manage to renege on their taxes with impunity? It becomes increasingly hard to blame people for faulty tax practice when the message coming from the top down is so obviously tainted. Simply turn on the evening news to catch wind of the latest Cabinet appointed tax cheat. It’s obvious they’re a dime a dozen.

Anyway I gotta go, I have itemized deductions to enhance…

Greg Rineberg

I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about people not paying their taxes! I mean sure paying taxes sucks and sure it is most likely that the money I pay in taxes is not going to do what I really want it to do. However, as a U.S. citizen it is my duty to pay taxes. Not only is it my duty, but it’s the LAW! This country has enough illegal immigrants and other dead beats that enjoy all the privileges of living in the U.S. without paying their taxes. The last thing that this country needs is “productive” people evading their taxes. I am certainly not as wealthy as I would like to be, financially, but I have managed to pay my taxes every year since I was 16. If you don’t pay your taxes, you should be deported to Afghanistan (no questions asked) with a handgun and a canteen. It’s simple, if you don’t pay your taxes, you lose your citizenship. So just….DO IT!!!

Jeff Ruemeli

I know not of Tax Evaision. I pay my taxes every year like a good American should. Because of my yearly controbutions to the government I feel that I have every right to bitch about those in charge. Those that evade taxes are unamerican and I cannot respect that. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You gots to pay da mang… Even if you hate da mang.

Jason Morgan

Tax evasion is ironically committed more frequently than not by those who make a lot of money. These are the people who make most of their money through ways in which their effective tax rate winds up being a much smaller percentage of their gross income than middle and lower-income Americans and yet they still avoid paying their fair share. Say what you want about tax rates and whatever else, it is strictly selfish and criminal for those big-earners to skirt their tax responsibilities when the family of four who lives on a single income of less than $50K per year pays 28% of their income in taxes without a thought of trying to usurp the system. If you don’t agree with your tax burden then write to your Congressman and/or Senator; evading taxes is not the answer.

Andrew Blanco

Tax evasion is a horrible thing to do unless you want to be elected to a position on President Obama’s cabinet!

All joking aside, I personally don’t see the point of evading your taxes unless you are doing it to protest the government’s misuse of your valuable income. If this is your motivation, more power to you.

Unfortunately, this is a really ineffective form of protest unless you can get millions of people to evade their taxes during the same year. And that’s never going to happen unless people really start hating the direction the governments going in.

So yeah, don’t evade your taxes unless you are ready to start a revolution. Viva la revolucion!

Next Month

I hereby tag the Invisible Blogger, Jeff Ruemeli.

~Man Overboard

Image Used in this Post

Death and Taxes image courtesy of Flickr user Mat Honan published under the CC license.