Clearly, the tax code is too complicated

February 4th, 2009 at 02:20pm Linda Grist Cunningham

What do Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer and Timothy Geithner have in common? Three things: (1) They are smart public servants with decades of important experience; (2) they had a real opportunity to shape a new and better United States; and, (3) they are dumber than dirt when it comes to figuring out their taxes. (For more, click here.)

If you live in the real world, you get a paycheck from which 15-40 percent is gnawed away by tax collectors and assorted other deductions, like medical insurance, Social Security and 401ks. Then, somewhere before April 15, you struggle through the tax forms or call an accountant and write a check to the feds and staties for whatever the balance is. If you’re sorta lucky, you might get a refund, which you really don’t want to get because getting a refund means the government has been using YOUR money for free for a long time. The goal is to come out even on April 15.

If you don’t do those things, you get really nasty letters from the Internal Revenue Service and the revenoohers harass you and make you pay up really, really fast. Most of us never, ever run afoul of the tax code. So either we are smarter than three high-profile Washingtonians, the tax code is too hard, or they are just plain cheats. Frankly, it’s likely a bit of all three.

Killefer, just up and decided one day not to pay unemployment taxes for a couple of privately hired nannies. Crikey, even I knew enough to do that back in the 1970s. Daschel and Geithner seem to have hired the wrong tax accountants, ignored the fine print or the bill or something because they’re not exactly sure what was what, but they both ended up writing some pretty whopping checks for totals that exceed the annual salaries of most of the people I know.

The whole thing just plain makes me mad and sad. What is wrong with people like these three? Did they think they wouldn’t get caught? That it was OK for them not to ‘fess up to such things during the vetting process? That they don’t have to pay taxes like the rest of us? That doing shady things to get around the complicated tax code is cool?

Sad times, folks, when the people who run our governments and our corporations are so good at taking care of number one.

For the record: I pay my taxes. And, 28 years ago, when my husband wanted to claim a wood-burning stove as some sort of “energy-saving device,” I wouldn’t do it.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized