Taxes

Today’s been my all-day tax day. The process isn’t so bad; I gather up the records I’ve throwing a drawer for the year and enter the information into TurboTax hoping that the outcome won’t be too devastating.

This year, it’s not all that ugly; we owe the Feds (what my Mom used to refer to as “Uncle Sugar”) a hefty chunk of change, but less than I feared. At least I won’t have to sell any bikes to pay what we owe.

I’d feel a lot better about things if I felt that my tax dollars were being spent in a way that I more heartily endorsed. I’m especially upset if it’s the case that the largest part of what I pay goes to the Defense Department, and if much of that is allocated to the war in Iraq. I wish there were some way to designate on my return on where I’d like my tax dollars to go. It pains me to be spending my hard-earned (and more easily inherited) cash on bombs and bullets when I’d like to see it buying books and bicycles.

I suppose if I were more politicized, I’d do like Thoreau, who was willing to go to jail so as not to pay taxes in support of a government that permitted slavery. Given that a not entirely unreasonable case could be made that the current administration is essentially permitting (and even supporting) an equally unjust state of affairs in Iraq, I might be expected to follow his lead and engage in civil disobedience, refusing to send any money to the IRS until the troops are brought home.

I guess I’m just not that good of a person, which—given what a moral exemplar Thoreau was—that’s not all that bad. But still, maybe I’m just being to complacent and taking the easy way out.

Maybe, but it certainly would have been easier still to not do the damn things at all.