I sometimes think that if I were a rich man living in the United States, I would not pay any taxes. Why bother?
According to the I.R.S., about 80% of the individuals known to ignore their tax bills are never investigated, let alone prosecuted. The I.R.S. claims to know of about 80 businesses, for example, who have openly declared that they don't believe tax law applies to them. Now, if a business declares that the tax law does not apply to them, and they are businesses, after all, wouldn't you have one of your crack investigators at least have a look?
You might think this sounds rather silly. Doesn't it, though? Ha ha. Billions of dollars in tax money is just sitting out there in private accounts, uncollected, while schmucks like you and I pay our fair share and make it possible for us to have roads and schools and armies and baseball stadiums and weapons of mass destruction.
And you would think that even an idiot can see that if the I.R.S. would hire a few more investigators, they could easily collect a good portion of the outstanding billions in tax liabilities just sitting out there. Enough to easily pay for the salaries of the additional inspectors and then some.
Not going to happen. Why not? Because though not a single Republican campaigns on the idea of eliminating taxes for those who don't wish to pay them (nudge nudge, wink wink), they have been busy defunding the I.R.S. for years, cutting the numbers of investigators and reducing the I.R.S.'s ability to enforce the government's own tax laws. They like it that way.
It's just another facet of the war in America. The war of the rich upon the poor and middle class. The battle is over who pays for highways and police and armies and baseball stadiums. The rich shouldn't have to pay. They can just live in their gated communities, and be driven to other gated communities, like the opera or ballet, in their chauffeur-driven Lincoln SUVs.
Copyright © 2003 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.