It's something we must do, as taxing as it may be

My Thoughts

By Dr. Bill Atwood

(Updated: Wednesday, April 16, 2008, 6:04 PM)

Life sure can prove to be taxing. The day-to-day chores and responsibilities sure seem daunting at times and many among us feel the pressure more than others. The bills are due and the post office seems to keep the demands for our cash coming at a good clip. Why is it that the bills never seem to get lost, but the payments do?

For the most part we are the ones who have created our own financial world.

Folks that live from paycheck to paycheck are in every strata of the economic scale. There are those who live on less than $1,000 per month and still manage to give to charity and save some dollars for a rainy day. There are some who make more than $100,000 per year and because of crazy, unbridled spending habits, they live on the edge of financial ruin if any unforeseen incident occurs.

Today we all must face the fact that there is a financial cost to living in this great land of ours. While the veterans have secured and paid for our freedom with their sacrifice, they have provided us with the freedom to live in a society that allows us to earn what we want to earn and live where we want to live. The governments for this nation, each state, and then each local governing agency were established by citizens to take care of the business of all of us living together.

We need roads and schools and a defense plan against the bad guys. It might be criminals in our cities or despots around the world that wish to attack so somebody at some time sold others on the idea of raising the needed dollars to provide the services to protect all of us. The folks decided that only the wealthy could pay for private schools so we established the concept of public schools that would teach all comers but would not charge tuition to the family of the students.

People saw the need for fire protection and sewers to take care of our collective needs as well as the need to regulate how we behave when dealing with each other.

All of it costs money. We simply need to raise the cash to buy the services we think we cannot live without. I don't want to engage in an argument about which items should stay in the budget and which items should be scratched out. Those ideas are fodder for another column, but today we need to think about the idea of paying our taxes. I have no idea why they selected April 15 as the day the taxes would be due and payable to the United States Internal Revenue Service, but somebody or a group of somebodies decided and convinced the Congress that the date needed to be the same day that the Titanic sank, Lincoln died, and my dad was born. Whatever the reason, today you and I must square our account with the Feds. Extensions until August are allowed, if and only if, you are entitled to a refund. If you owe the IRS any money you need to pay up today.

I hate paying taxes just like the next guy, but pay them I do and I am happy to report that my forms are in and the IRS has confirmed that they received them with the handy card my accountant inserts into the envelope with the returns.

I am still waiting for my refund, which really is my money that the government withheld over and above my tax liability. It is interesting that the government gets interest-free loans from most of us and has sold us on the idea that we are getting money from the government when in-fact they are simply giving us our own money back without a cent of interest and we are supposed to be happy. They tax my patience with the withholding of my money every payday.

Again, I hate paying taxes and agree with Henry Ford that it is every American's obligation to pay as little tax as is required by law to pay.

Henry felt we had an obligation to use every loophole we could find. I like his Model As, and I like his tax philosophy.

But we pay our taxes and we complain and we go about our lives and we do not rise in revolt as they did over the tax on whiskey or on tea when this nation was under control of the Crown.

We pay our taxes because we do not want to pay the penalties like Leona Helmsley paid when she sat in the "Gray Bar Motel" because she violated tax laws.

There is another way to look at paying our taxes. It is simply the cost of living here. End of the story. I really hate seeing many of us working many months of the year to pay the taxes to support the government's programs and there are many areas where they should cut the spending, but I am not angry enough at paying to leave. I don't want to give up living in the United States with our freedom for the sake of saving a couple of thousand dollars a year on my tax obligation. Would anyone really give up part of our freedoms for a reduction in our tax code? I think not.

So we pay and we complain and we are a part of the on-going conversation that the taxes are too high and the government wastes the money and we don't want to take it anymore. But we really understand that the government needs the money to provide the services that people demand.

We hate paying, we don't understand the tax codes, we all see waste in government spending and yet we pay to keep life as great as we know it to be.

It is so taxing.