The IRS and Mr. Jefferson

Published 1:08 am Friday, October 3, 2008

After many hours of compiling my taxes (and finally having to resort to a paid tax preparer), I feel like I work for the federal government, which seems akin to a giant corporation with monopolistic powers. Write offs have been curtailed; losses are limited (but you can claim all the gains you want) and we can only amend three years back, while the IRS can go back seven. Is this really the friendlier IRS?

Tax codes are thousands of pages. When half of America’s average Joes have to pay someone to do their taxes (God forbid if you have a business), it’s time to simplify.

Thomas Jefferson, founding father and great visionary, foresaw two future events coming to this nation:

1. That we needed to curb slavery or it would tear us apart and result in long-term wounds. He was shouted down by slave-owning founding fathers and we had the Civil War and decades of racism.

2. He saw a federal government that would grow huge and overbearing – massive and increasing.

We are there.

Ralph Westermann

Fall City