Lord Kadizzle becomes Kataxeled

Lord Kadizzle spent the last two days paying his taxes. To say the least, he feels kataxeled. The most astonishing part of project occurred when the button to print the return was hit. Out of the computer came 38 pages of tax returns. Now keep in mind, his lordship used Turbo Tax to do his taxes, so the two-day process was considerably sped up.

If Americans understood the tax system, they would rebel, that is why it has been made so complicated. The system, when examined closely, very much favors the haves over the have nots. With close examination of the system, one would find that people who work for a living are punished, while those who collect interest checks and dividends are rewarded.

A splendid example of needless complication is Turbo Tax. This company has done what the federal government should do. Turbo Tax has made a computer program that leads you through the nonsense step by step. I am sure the average taxpayer puts out $100 for tax preparation. That would mean the federal government could spend billions of dollars to develop an automated system, and still everyone would come out ahead.

As I said earlier, most of the time when the populace is going to get fleeced, the most popular technique is needless complication. With today’s computer systems, the information could all be tied together without your intervention. As the system is now set up, I call the Charles Schwab computer and tell it to tell Turbo Tax what it knows. I can tell my computer to go to the employers and get from their computer what Turbo Tax needs to know. In the final stage, Turbo Tax tells the government computer what it knows. All the information is on a computer somewhere, and the computers only need to communicate, but too much information sheds too much light.

Let me give you a fine example: Good old Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the United States, who happens to have a social conscience, published his findings on the tax system. What Mr. Buffet pointed out was that his receptionist was being taxed at a considerably higher tax rate than he was being taxed. Obviously, Mr. Buffet is not an idiot. When the facts are boiled down to their essence, it turns out the people on the bottom are paying taxes at a much higher rate than they realize.

The most bizarre tax is the Social Security Tax. Few people understand that once you go over the $95, 000 threshold, you no longer pay Social Security. This translates into an automatic seven percent discount on taxes for those making over that amount.

In the end, most people give up and just pay their taxes even though they don’t have a clue what is happening. That is the way we want it to be. That is why we spend billions to feed more lawyers and accountants than any other country. Make everything complicated so ordinary people cannot understand it or deal with it. Look at our health care system, just one more example of a needlessly complicated system designed to provide the least with the least.