The dreaded April 15th tax deadline has come and gone. Hopefully you got all squared away with our friends at the IRS...or filed an extension...or pay quarterly estimated taxes. If not, prepare for some penalties to start racking up. Crazy thing is, you and I are required to pay our debt to the government every year, but the government can pay (or not) whenever they feel like it.
Hypocritical? Maybe. A terrible example? Definitely. According to http://www.usdebtclock.org/ , the United States is working on $20,000,000,000,000 in National Debt which is almost $161,000 of debt per taxpayer. Does that put a sick feeling in your stomach? If it does make you sick, you'd better not go to their website and look at the other stats-you may just lose your brunch. What are we doing about it you ask? Nothing apparently. The Democrats are running two candidates who want to expand social programs taking us further into debt and the Republicans are running a three-ring circus with Donald Trump as the Ringmaster. The 'Grand' Old Party has had eight long years to organize a comeback for the Presidency and all they could come up with was Mitt Romney and now this train wreck? Really guys?
Congress should be able to come up with a solution...right? Nope. These jokers haven't been able to balance a budget for a long time. Fact is, we haven't had a balanced budget since Bill Clinton was President. That's why there are only two things that are certain : Death and Taxes. At this stage-I'd chose option 1.
Everyone should teach their children about taxes at a young age. Tax their allowance or if they don't get an allowance-Easter and Halloween are great holidays to learn this valuable lesson. Lay out their candy, then take 40% of it. After that, do something like our government would do. Eat the 40% you stole in front of the child, give it away to random strangers, or simply flush it down the toilet. Everyone needs to learn how our elected officials and government bureaucracies operate so they won't be surprised when they finally go into the workforce and have to work for a third or more of the year to pay the government 'their fair share'. Maybe after that, you can teach them about our political parties and how they operate.
Please remember to vote every single time an election is held for any office. Just like paying taxes is your 'civic duty', so is voting. I'm pretty sure that complaining about taxes is also a civic duty but I can't seem to find that in writing anywhere. Let's just take it as 'a given'. Complaining is essential because everyone likes to hear a privileged person gripe about paying taxes like they're the only one who had to do it...especially at a Starbucks while ordering a $5.00 latte.
If you're still dragging your feet on your taxes, go see a Certified Public Accountant or there are plenty of other options via computer programs, your parents, a pet, a cell mate or one of those wild-eyed looking folks dressed up like Lady Liberty. The United States seems to be the procrastiNATION. However you get your taxes back to the IRS, do something soon. The longer you wait-the worse it'll get. Trust me, the IRS isn't going to forget about it.