Thoughts on Tax Day

1. Why is the IRS called a "service?" Couldn't it have been named a department like Labor, a bureau like the BLS or FBI, a commission like the FTC, an administration like FDA, an agency like EPA, etc.

2. From a previous post: Under the scoring rules of bowling, you get rewarded, not penalized, for being successful. If you get a spare, the scoring system rewards you by adding the pins from the next ball into the current frame, and if you get a strike you get rewarded by adding your next 2 balls into the current frame.

Under our progressive income tax system with 6 tax rates increasing from 10% to 35%, you get penalized, not rewarded, for being successful, productive and entrepreneurial, because the more you earn, the higher the tax rate you pay. The top marginal income tax rate has been as high as 91% in the 1950s and 1960s, and 70% in the 1970s.

If we scored bowling the way we tax income, we would subtract, not add pins for a spare or strike, i.e. penalize successful bowling.

If we taxed income the way we score bowling, we would reward success by reducing the tax burden for the most productive workers, not increasing it.

3. From an editorial by David Strom, president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, "The further a person climbs up the economic ladder, the harder the tax code hits them. By taxing higher incomes, the government discourages the most productive members of society from doing what they do best: producing.

Progressive income taxes serve to put a higher and higher burden on those people climbing the economic ladder, and serve to entrench the wealthy at the top. Because as lower- and middle- class workers climb that ladder, bigger barriers are placed in their way. The rich stay rich, while the rest of us work ourselves to the bone to get ahead."

4. A good collection of tax quotes and observations here from American.com.

5. Q: What's the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion?
A: About 5 years in a federal prison.