Fun With Taxes

You might as well feed the federal remora with a smile this year: check out Slate's compendium of tax day cartoons and laugh all the way to the post office. Or, if that's a stretch, at least sob less violently.

Comments

[dhex]

apparently free bonghits have joined minds and markets?

[Howlateisthepostofficeopentoni]

SM,
Did she read all 18,000 pages, and where can I get a free download of it?"The Ode to the Code"

[dhex]

the funniest thing about taxes is that even on the irs website they're referred to as "voluntary"

where the hell do they get that idea from?

[nobody]

Taxes are voluntary.
Taxes are voluntary.
Taxes are voluntary.
You are getting sleepy.
Sleeeepy...
Sleeeeeeepeeeeee...

[Mark S.]

It's easy dhex. It's voluntary only if you volunteer not to have an income for a year.

[BigPhil]

dhex,

You can either volunteer to pay a 40% tithe to Uncle Sam, or you can volunteer to visit one of his finer housing establishments for two to five years, not counting "good behavior" time.

Questions?

[Mo]

dhex,
If you don't want to pay taxes, then go back to Russia. You commie.

[JS]

Taxes and all the things taxes pay for. Like cluster bombs? Like a public school system that makes people dumber by the decade?

[JDM]

It's voluntary in the sense that the labor used to determine what taxes you owe is uncompensated. Even if you pay an accountant, his labor is still voluntary from the perspective of the IRS. Actually, since the accountant then has to pay taxes on the labor he provides to do your taxes, his labor is super-voluntary.

[s.m. koppelman]

Yes, yes. Taxes are bad because taxes pay for all that useless government stuff. I know. If we got rid of taxes and all the things taxes pay for, America would be a much better place, like all those other largish places without taxes and the nosy police and inept public schools and white-elephant roadbuilding projects and stuff. Like that great experiment in non-government paradise, 1990s Afghanistan.

Me, I like the pageantry of Tax Day. The parades, the clambakes, the ceremonial Funding of the Agencies.. I think it's great how people dress up in ever more outlandish hats and robes every year. My favorite, though, is the Reading of the Codes, the local ones and the ones they show on TV. When Eminem came onstage during Maya Angelou's Reading of the Codes last year, wasn't that just amazing? I loved that syncopated thing they did when they got to the capital gains schedules. Damn.

[Jason Ligon]

"I have a question: does anybody ever pay 40% to Uncle Sam in taxes?

You're a liar."

People who rent and people who don't contribute to 401(k)s can get to an overall level of taxation at 40% easily. Not Uncle Sam per se, but especially if you live in CA or MA, that stuff adds up quickly in the absence of large deductions.

[kwais]

s.m.
two things.
1)I am sure it has been pointed out somewhere before, that Afganistan was not without a government. The Taliban were the government, and I am pretty sure they didn't rule with a libertatian theme.

2) I am glad you like taxes so much. You probably think that taxes are not high enough and are against the Bush tax cut. So why don't you pay how much you think you should pay, and let me pay how much I think I should pay.

I think that tax money going into welfare, public education, social security, medicare, and some other programs to be doing more harm than good. I'll gladly pay the 41% that goes to the military though. Actually I think that the taxes on the stuff that I buy would cover the 41%.

But don't let me stop you from giving up as much as you think you should pay.

[M1EK]

BigPhil:

You can either volunteer to pay a 40% tithe to Uncle Sam, or you can volunteer to visit one of his finer housing establishments for two to five years, not counting "good behavior" time.

Questions?

I have a question: does anybody ever pay 40% to Uncle Sam in taxes?

You're a liar.