A Canadian millionaire I interviewed back in the Sixties insisted he liked to pay taxes because if he wasn’t doing well financially he wouldn’t be taxed.
But I’m sure he is a rare bird. Most of us hate taxes.
It is not only painful to our bank accounts but often a pain in the neck as well.
The annual income tax ritual, for example.
Unless you enjoy rummaging through random receipts and doing a lot of complicated math – or paying someone else to do it – it’s a dreaded ordeal.
Personally, I prefer a tax system that doesn’t force me to do extra work. I don’t mind the taxes on gas so much, for example, because they’re buried in the bill at the pump and it’s the gas station owner or oil company that has to do the math.
Left to me, government would collect its taxes as close to the source as possible. That way, the taxes would be passed on less visibly to the consumer.
But that’s never going to happen. We’re always going to be stuck with figuring out our own tax burden and finding the money to pay for it. And we will just keep on grumbling about it.
Trump is tapping into the anti-tax sentiment with a proposal that’s supposed to simplify the process and reduce the burden. But a closer look reveals the plan is designed to benefit Daddy Warbucks types like Trump, not you and me.
The approach isn’t new or original. It’s a lot like the disastrous experiment in Kansas, where cutting corporate taxes and so on bankrupted the state.
Republicans have been trying to sell us the scam for decades, and from time to time, Republican governments have put their bogus philosophy to the test.
And if time has proven one thing, it’s that cutting taxes for the rich doesn’t create a “trickle-down” effect ultimately enriching the rest of us. What it does is increase income inequality and create massive government deficits.
Anyway, I’m sure Trump’s plan isn’t going anywhere, There are too many powerful special interests who would be hurt. It will most likely turn out to be just another botched Trump initiative.
And that would be a good thing for America.
