Bill Cosgriff, Tax Expert

Me Grandpa Joe, he had that welding rental business. He also had rooming houses. You might imagine that required a lot of accounting. Joe, then, had contracted with an accounting firm.

Me Pops was always good with numbers, and he worked with Joe, his dad. One year as tax season approached, Joe asked Pops (my dad) about what he thought his taxes might be.

Dad proceeded to look over Joe's books, scribbling numbers on a paper as he went along. He eventually gave his dad a number of what he might expect to pay the IRS.

It turns out dad was within about ten bucks of the actual total. "Why am I paying Jack Donahue (his accountant) when you can do my taxes for me? Why don't you do them from here on out?" Joe asked his son.

Me Pops flatly refused. "No way. Maybe my numbers are good, but Donahue knows where to put those numbers on the right lines on all those tax forms." 

So Pops got out of being Joe's accountant. It was surely best for both of them. All three, counting Mr. Donahue.

Rand Paul's Tax Plan

I just read where Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has proposed eliminating the income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax. I could live with that.

He would exempt necessary items from the tax, things such as food and clothing. Very nice. The tax would be 23% on all else. Yes, that sounds like a lot. At almost one dollar in four it should sound huge. But what percentage of your paycheck is held back each week anyway?

A sales tax is automatically graduated, meaning the rich will naturally pay more. They're not going to hide money in a hole in the ground like misers, after all. Not the vast majority of them anyways. And it rids us of the income tax which, and I will insist on this point, is immoral anyway. It's none of the government's business how much money you make. With an income tax it becomes their business. That's. Just. Wrong.

So there's my mini-rant for today. Oh, Paul's plan will fail, because the government doesn't really care about the people after all. But that's another mini-rant for another mini-day.

Income tax day, a day late

Did you pay your taxes yesterday, if not earlier? Good. You should pay them. Fines and jail time aren't worth the protest.

Still, we should remember that income taxes are flat out immoral. They are legal theft, period and full stop. That's why they were unconstitutional to begin with. Few people realize that the original Constitution decreed that there would be no 'head tax', that is, no tax levied on a person simply to levy it on him so that government could get cash. That's why they had to change the Constitution through the 16th Amendment to allow it. The Supreme Court had ruled that income taxes violated the original document.

The framers intent has been one more time destroyed through a government who knows better than you what to do with your cash. Rest well in that hubris, America.

Giving blood

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment. They took blood.

I then went home and paid my taxes. So I guess I gave blood twice yesterday.

At least what the doctor ordered will help me stay healthy.

Income Tax Day 2018

As I have said before, I've come to the conclusion that incomes taxes are in general immoral. I pay mine because there's no practical alternative. Yet they only exist because might makes right. In the case of republics like ours, what that means is fifty percent of the voters plus one authorizes the majority to dip into everyone's pockets however deeply they want to.

This isn't necessarily wrong I'll admit. Sometimes a crisis must be met with greater government intrusion into our lives. Yet by and large this is not the case; only extremes such as World War II demand it.

I know governments need money. But it should be gotten through user fees and sales taxes. And you know what? Such a system is automatically graduated. The rich will naturally pay more in taxes, the middle class less, and the poor nothing (I'd have no problem exempting them from any taxes) because those with greater incomes will buy and use more.

There are reasons I've cited before which support my point, but I'll stop here. Why? Because those agree with me know them, and those who don't have likely stopped reading anyway.

The immoral income tax

Yesterday, I sent copies of a W-9 form to two different companies I've sold to. And as every time I've had to do that, I resent it. You see, I've come to believe that the income tax, at least as a general rule, is immoral, and that W-9 forms and the like essentially make us spy on one another.

I'll keep paying taxes on my income, to be sure, because there's no practical alternative. Still, that doesn't mean the tax is morally right. It simply means the government is holding a figurative gun to my head.

Let me ask you this: does your neighbor have the moral right to know how much money you make? No? Then why does your neighbor named Uncle Sam or Lansing? Yet to tax our earnings they must be told that, again by compulsion. And even if you argue that an income tax is okay, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Things such as W-9s presume guilt; now we see two reasons not to like the income tax. It allows the government to assume we will work against it. No matter how true that might be for many people, and I will readily concede that some try to circumvent it as they do many other laws, on a case by case basis it is still moral presumption and a violation of our rights as citizens.

But how else can the government get money, Marty, because even governments need cash you know. My answer is a system of sales taxes and user fees, all of which are factored against voluntary interactions. You want to drive? Pay gas taxes. You want to camp at a government park? Pay a user fee. We could easily make reasonable exemptions to this, but I think you get the point.

Yeah, nothing will come of this. I even expect many of you will disagree with me. But I felt like a rant this morning, so I give you one. There is little doubt in my mind that income taxes are immoral.

Tax Day 2017

Today is Tax Day, April 18, 2017. Yet we haven't worked enough just yet to have actually paid our taxes. That day comes later this month. Or maybe in May. Whatever.

You want to make people into Republicans or Libertarians? Or better, you want to make them conservatives? Make every dime of their taxes, and not their tax forms, due on April 15 (or 18, as is the case this time around). Further, get rid of the withholding tax. Make people feel deeply exactly how much they pay when it must be paid in a lump sum rather than weekly. You want a second American Revolution? It would start the day after Tax Day without withholding. Probably sooner.

So many of us are so happy when we get a refund that we don't notice what we actually pay. We're stupidly happy when we get our own money back from an interest free loan demanded by Washington and Lansing. Anything wrong with this picture, Americans?

Tax Day 2016: we should be upset

Today is Tax Day, April 18, 2016. Yet we haven't worked enough just yet to have actually paid our taxes. That day comes later this month. Or maybe in May. Whatever.

You want to make people into Republicans if not Libertarians? Or better, you want to make them conservatives? Make every dime of their taxes, and not their tax forms, due on April 15 (or 18, as is the case in 2016). Further, get rid of the withholding tax. Make people feel deeply exactly how much they pay when it must be paid in a lump sum rather than weekly. You want a second American Revolution? It would start the day after Tax day if we would play fair with workers. Probably sooner.

So many of us are so happy when we get a refund that we don't notice what we actually pay. We're stupidly happy when we get our own money back from an interest free loan given the American government. Anything wrong with this picture, Americans?

A few ideas for April 15

Much gets said about what's wrong with our government, but little gets said about concrete ways to fix it. To be sure, everyone seems appropriately concerned with the acts and laws of government being constitutional. Yet rarely does anyone actually address the document itself. There are things within it which could be changed or altered to better direct the workings of Washington.

We could start by getting rid of the Fourteenth Amendment. Say what you will about how it has protected the rights of the citizenry, it has nonetheless been used to allow the Federal Government to dip too far into what originally had been considered the realm of the States, and the citizens as well. We forget that in 'championing' the citizens' rights we have seen great abuses of their rights as well. We might just be better off to leave basic human rights to the several states.

The Sixteenth Amendment ought to be trashed as well. In letting the feds dip directly into the pocketbooks of individuals we have expanded their power far beyond the intention of the framers. It must be remembered, as the great Chief Justice John Marshall said, "The power to tax implies the power to destroy." Let the feds get money from the states and from various fees for only their necessary functions.

Let's trash the Seventeenth Amendment while we're at it. If senators were elected by state legislatures as they once were, then they could get back to their true job: representing the states as states. We are a federal system after all: it isn't as though the state governments should have no direct say in federal antics.

This is only for a start, to perhaps begin discussion. Sure, nothing will come of it as the special interests hold too much sway and federal power has become too entrenched. But you got to have a dream: if you don't have a dream, how you gonna make your dreams come true?

Tax Day Lesson: How We Can Change the Constitution

Much gets said about what's wrong with our government, but little gets said about concrete ways to fix it. To be sure, everyone seems appropriately concerned with the acts and laws of government being constitutional. Yet rarely does anyone actually address the document itself. There are things within it which could be changed or altered to better direct the workings of Washington.

We could start by getting rid of the Fourteenth Amendment. Say what you will about how it has protected the rights of the citizenry, it has nonetheless been used to allow the Federal Government to dip too far into what originally had been considered the realm of the States, and the citizens as well. We forget that in 'championing' the citizens' rights we have seen great abuses of their rights as well. We might just be better off to leave basic human rights to the several states.

The Sixteenth Amendment ought to be trashed as well. In letting the feds dip directly into the pocketbooks of individuals we have expanded their power far beyond the intention of the framers. It must be remembered, as the great Chief Justice John Marshall said, "The power to tax implies the power to destroy." Let the feds get money from the states and from various fees for only their necessary functions.

Let's trash the Seventeenth Amendment while we're at it. If senators were elected by state legislatures as they once were, then they could get back to their true job: representing the states as states. We are a federal system after all: it isn't as though the state governments should have no direct say in federal antics.

This is only for a start, to perhaps begin discussion. Sure, nothing will come of it as the special interests hold too much sway and federal power has become too entrenched. But you got to have a dream: if you don't have a dream, how you gonna make your dreams come true?