[Rod_Cloutier]

Since my near-death experience last year from a drug overdose, I'm no longer afraid of death. Taxes on the other hand drive me right up the wall.

I did my taxes tonight and I wasted the whole of a perfectly good Sunday evening trying to figure out the mindset of the people who prepare the tax forms. Further complicated, by the fact than the whole tax system is now geared to what used to be non-traditional broken families; who have divorced, remarried, split tax custody of children, ect. ect. It's a whole load of crap you have to wade through if your a married couple with a simple traditional family structure.

I'm Canadian, so I don't know how bad it is in the States with the IRS, or elsewhere in the world, but I'm just flabbergasted at the weird things in the tax forms and the bizarre tax loopholes that have come to pass including:

Cultural and ecological gifts- Gifts of of ecologically sensitive land or certified cultural property

Amounts paid in foreign funds

Depletion allowances for resources

Labor sponsored venture capital funds

Split income for a child under the age of 18

Odor control allowance

And many, many others that I can't even begin to understand

Along with all of the usual inapplicable stuff that only applies to farmers, fisheries, loggers, and aboriginal Indians.

I think that they would likely save money by eliminating the income taxes and just directly monetize their expenses by the use of the printing press. They could completely eliminate the tax collection bureaus, the auditors, the accountants, the policing, courts, and related apparatus. At the very least, just get rid of all the loopholes and then everyone pays say about 15% of income, no questions asked, no bureaucracy, no exceptions.

If the tax system is unwieldy now, what's going to happen when TSHTF because of peak oil, catastrophic climate change, or financial collapse?

Just venting- I ended up owing more than I've already paid out this year in the end. (Kinda sad about this now)

[SeaGypsy]

In Aussie, the 'churn' of tax out/ tax concession & refunds in, for a family of four, occupies about 20% of household income up to about $50kpa with a zero sum equation at the end of year. It's pretty absurd. However go to $125kpa & you will be paying at least two adult pensions in tax.

[onlooker]

I would not paying taxes if it went to productive things like rebuilding Americas infrastructure instead it goes down that black hole of military spending and why exactly do we need this over bloated military exactly? Who is the boogieman out there ready to get us?

[Cog]

The US military has shrunk quite a bit over the last ten years. Where the military spending kills us is creating 5th generation fighters when we could create less sophisticated fighters and more of them cheaper. Its a relic from the Cold War when we thought we would be fighting huge air and land battles with the Soviets or Chinese. That is not really the threat IMO. Low intensity conflicts are what we have been doing since 1945, with the exception of Korea and the First Gulf War.