Why I never! It’s tax day again

A friend of mine ( fine ex boss   ) made a claim around tax day that he thinks of corporate inversion ( a la Apple MSFT GOOG et al …) to be tax evasion

I don’t and furthermore this year really do want to try tax inversion

But leaving that aside I find this whole notion of tax evasion when legal very interesting

Unlike some on the right or the libertarian science fiction dabblers I am not anti tax just because. I am not even anti tax at all lets face it taxes get us lots of awesome things like the internet and 911 both of which have quite literally been life changing for me

However those of us on the left who accept taxes as the um tax you pay for a civil society should also be honest enough to accept that the structural way in which taxes are set up ( if there is one thing I could change it would be tax withholding ) lead to some deep misunderstandings about what we pay for and what we get and pretty much allow govt to get away with a lot of waste

In many ways tax policy is really well um more visible in the states because they cannot run a deficit or print money.Red states like Kansas and Wisconsin are doing every one a great service by providing massive tax cuts to the wealthy and slashing services to make up the deficit. There will come a point when the populace wakes up to the fact that hey what happened to all those nice things the guvmint used to do OR THEY MIGHT NOT which is great too . If a people decide they would rather not pay taxes and have bare bone services that is great too . For example I think in Topeka or Trenton some time ago the cops simply stopped taking on domestic abuse cases and responding to calls unless an eyewitness was present because you know … no money ( that’s right senator sharia law is coming though not quite how you imagined )

But and this is important if you need to raise money through increasing taxes one of the things in theory a legislature should look at is closing loopholes and or special deductions ( yes I know this rarely happens ) . However things get really out of whack if just a few people use a deduction or loophole. That way lies irrational tax policy for these loopholes are on no ones radar neither do they generate any sort of public outrage . The only way a loophole\deduction becomes untenable or worth looking at ( in terms of taking away as opposed to raising taxes on everyone ) is if lots and lots of people use that loophole

The dollar amount of your tax obligation is the end result of a myriad of policy and law. IMO it is everyone’s duty and right to use EVERY legal mean available to them to come up with the LOWEST amount possible to pay. That is one of the few few limited levers  we have as citizens to try and have some say in tax policy . if everyone does this and that means we have fewer services then good legislators will need to look at which loopholes to remove or to raise taxes or something else

Not looking at how to manage your taxes in order to pay anything more than you owe is quite silly to put it mildly!