Tag: taxes

The Portly Politico Tax Reform

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s Tax Day in America, the day when the onslaught of Turbo Tax and H&R Block tax ads reach their fever pitch before the ad buys dwindle away in a desperate attempt to get late filers to pay their taxes.  For months, taxes and tax-related services have carpet-bombed our mental faculties, demanding we make our annual sacrifices to the Imperium.

I did our taxes four times before finally giving up on a potentially large discount (read my tedious, subscriber-only post if you want to know the lurid details).  No software could adequately handle our (admittedly unusual) tax situation, and the federal government rejected our filing three times before I finally [sur]rendered unto Caesar.  I estimate that I spent about twenty hours on our taxes this year, time that could have been spent composing, napping, unpacking, writing, laughing with my wife, researching history, weeding, mowing, showering, cooking—anything more enjoyable and/or productive than convincing Uncle Sam that I did, indeed, teach a bunch of music lessons last year and played several Sundays at a Methodist Church for profit (financial, not spiritual).

I’m not alone.  I’ve seen a number of notes on Substack and YouTube from writers and creators echoing a familiar refrain:  “sorry, no article/video/podcast/interpretative dance tutorial this week, guys:  I’m working on my taxes.”  Sure, the world will keep spinning, and we need some taxes to pay for all those Tomahawk missiles and gender reassignment surgeries for federal inmates—God Forbid we fail to slice up the inmates’ genitalia—but the whole thing is a massive waste of valuable resources.

There’s a reason an entire industry exists around tax preparation—nobody wants to take the time to sit down and go through all that paperwork (except for me and my younger brother, apparently; he ended up handling taxes for not only his family, but for our parents and our elderly, widowed grandmother—God Bless him!).  H&R Block will do your taxes for you!  Even then, you’re paying a few hundred bucks to hand someone else your W-2s and 1099s and what not.  You’re still answering all the same questions as just using the software yourself.  Regardless, you want to spend time not doing taxes, so you shell out the cash.  Some part-time rookie who needs extra cash from January through April looks over your stuff and slaps it together for you, and you get a “refund” (just pre-paid tax back) and feel good.

You shouldn’t!  You gave the federal government a coerced, mandatory, interest-free loan for up to twelve months, and they’re letting you have some of that money back because you maybe loaned them a little too much.  At least split the interest with us!

All of the above is, by now, familiar to every American, to the point that, like most evils (necessary or otherwise), we just grudgingly accept it and try to get through April without the IRS hassling us too much about digging up those shoebox receipts.

My friends, there is a better way.  Or at least a way that would be more convenient for everyone, even if it means Billy Gigeconomy can’t get a few extra bucks doing your taxes for you.  We must end the income tax—or alter it substantially.

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Lazy Sunday CCCLXXXIII: Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

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It’s tax-o-rama here in the States, and yours portly has done his fair share of grumbling.  Here are some recent posts on that most onerous of topics:

A sign that democracy does not reflect the will of the people is that few things are more popular than eliminating the income tax, but we still have it.  It seems like it would be a political slam-dunk to get rid of this ridiculous form of taxation, but I guess too many tax attorneys and H&R Block seasonal workers would be out of a job.  But, hey, we could enjoy Easter again!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

TBT^4,294,967,296: End the Income Tax

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Once again it’s tax season in the United States.  I won’t bore you—again—with the details of our bizarre, nightmarish tax situation, but to suffice it to say that, at the time of writing, yours portly and his dear Dr. Wife are about $5500 poorer and Uncle Sam is probably paying for a federal inmates gender reassignment surgery.  Next year will be much easier, but it’s always a pain.

I think what I resent most is that the federal government is now party to every economic exchange I make outside of purchasing a brownie from a sidewalk bake sale.  Any money I earn gets reported.  Indeed, I probably report more than I really need to, because I do take seriously Jesus’ instruction to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”  I just wish Caesar was spending my money in the national interest, not in the niche interests of some special interest group or immigrant group that got here fifteen seconds ago.

But it is—for another year, at least—done.  Now I’m free to enjoy Spring Break and to wait, watchful and eel-like, for next year.

With that, here is 10 April 2025’s “TBT^65,536: End the Income Tax“:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Tax Season

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

After probably twenty hours and redoing our FY2025 taxes four times across four different software systems, each with their own distinct, labyrinthian logic, I finally filed our federal and State income taxes.

In the process, our balance due to the federal government swung wildly as I tried (in vain) to get Form 8962 to work correctly, which resulted in our federal return being denied—like Christ Being Denied by Peter—three times.

Finally, however, the cock crowed, and we coughed up our pound of flesh (and then some) to Uncle Sam and the States of North and South Carolina.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Closing and Taxes

The Portly Politico10 Comments

Yours portly has spent the last two nights laboring over income tax returns for Dr. Wife and myself.  My taxes are always a bit unusual because I have so many side hustles (and 1099s as a result), but getting married in late 2025 changed quite a bit.  Apparently, the State of South Carolina treats all income reported on the federal tax return as income due to the State, but you can claw it back to avoid double taxation (which is unconstitutional) by pulling the AGI from another State’s return (in this case, Dr. Wife’s earnings were entirely in North Carolina).  I was shocked to learn that North Carolina has a lower State income tax than South Carolina, especially as we’re the allegedly more conservative of the two Carolinas.  Yeesh!

Quick note:  do not take any of the above as financial or tax advice.  I’m not even sure if I’m explaining all of that correctly (to my younger brother:  don’t panic—I did everything by the book, I just can’t remember every little exact detail at the time of writing, and don’t feel like looking it all up again, but I did it correctly).

As per usual, filling out tax forms reminds me of how much I despise the income tax, in part because it demands that we reveal so much of ourselves to the federal government.  Like with so many things, though, we reveal intimate details about our lives—like how big our home office is—so we can grasp onto a few more of our  own dollars.  At this point, we should do away with all deductions and just charge everyone a flat 5% of their income—or, better yet, abolish the income tax and shift to a flat national sales tax.  It’s way easier to control my spending than to try to calculate what percentage of my cell phone usage was for business purposes.

It’s also frustrating to hustle and scrimp and save all year, only to be punished for it come tax day (and, yes, I should start paying taxes quarterly—that’s coming under the new Dr. Wife/Portly regime).

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TBT^65,536: End the Income Tax

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I hate the income tax.  It’s an intrusive and demoralizing experience filing them every year.  Why does the federal government get to know about every transaction I’ve made over the course of a fiscal year?

It’s also expensive.  I work exceptionally hard so that I can attempt to enjoy a decent quality of life.  That’s only gotten harder with inflation.  As I prepared my income taxes this year, I found that, even though I earned less from lessons during FY2024 than FY2023, I somehow owed more money—by a factor of three.

When I first wrote this post, I argued for a national sales tax as the lesser of two evils.  Now, I’m tariffs all the way, baby.  They act, in a sense, as a national sales tax, but they have the social benefit of bringing jobs and industries back to the United States.  I’d rather pay an extra fifty bucks for my American-made washing machine and give a fellow citizen a good job than have to shell out my meager savings and reveal all of my financial underwear to the IRS every April.

At least with Trump in office, there is a faint hope—very faint, but a hope nonetheless—that the income tax might be reaching the end of its abusive, wicked life.  What a terrible system!

With that, here is 11 April 2024’s “TBT^256: End the Income Tax“:

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TBT^256: End the Income Tax

The Portly Politico10 Comments

It’s that time of year again, when yours portly yells impotently at the clouds and demands the end of the income tax.  Unlike prior years, yours portly actually got his taxes done relatively early (if you count early March as “relatively early”), and while I owed both Uncle Sam and the Great State of South Carolina a pound of flesh, I ended up getting away with only paying $54 total—woooooot!

Still, the annual ritual of telling the federal government how many miles I drove to music lessons and what I paid for WordPress is an odious and obnoxious reminder that the federal government dominates our lives and our personal information.  I recognize that taxes are a necessary evil, but let’s focus on the “evil” part of that equation.

I don’t know what the solution is, and I think the Republican Party has spent far too much time quibbling over the placement of commas in the tax code instead of fighting the necessary cultural battles in our nation, but tax reform should be a no-brainer.  Here’s the Portly Proposal:

  • Tax all income at 10%
  • Don’t tax interest earnings in savings accounts

That’s it!  Easy.  Cheap.  Everyone pays the same percentage.  Maybe—maybe!—have a carveout for people who earn, say, less than $20,000 a year—they pay, say, 5%, or even just 1%.  If people want to withhold from their paycheck, fine.  But there are no surprises—if you earn $2000 in March, you withhold $200.  At filing time, all that would be done is confirming you’ve paid your amount; if you overpaid on that first $20,000, then you’d get a refund.

Even that is more involved than I’d like, but it gives a bit of relief to the working poor.  Otherwise, no deductions, no carveouts, nothing.  There’s still an incentive to save, since no one pays for interest earned on savings accounts.

Yeah, yeah—you want to write off your $300,000 mortgage.  No.  Sorry—let’s not incentivize people to borrow huge amounts of money so they can save forty bucks on their taxes.

With that, here is 13 April 2023’s “TBT^16: End the Income Tax“:

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Island Living: Vanuatuan Taxes

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The FAIRtax folks, who advocate for replacing income and corporate taxes with a unified national sales tax, posted an interesting piece about the remote Pacific nation of Vanuatu (“FAIRtax in Vanuatu?“).  It discusses how the archipelago boasts incredibly low taxes:  a 15% value-added tax (“VAT”), and a business license fee of 5% (presumably, 5% of a business’s total annual revenue).

I’m personally agnostic on the adoption of a national sales tax in the United States.  I do believe it would be much better than the income tax, which I absolutely loathe, and which requires a complex and oppressive bureaucracy to administer.  I also resent sending the IRS all of my personal information every single year, including how many miles I drove and what sheet music I purchased (although those are great for those sweet, sweet tax write-offs).  If it were practical, I’d much rather see a national sales tax, or even a return to old-school tariff regimes.

The problem is that, should we ever adopt a national sales tax, it will likely accompany the national income tax.  A national sales tax also places a great deal of strain on States and localities.  Good luck having a 10% national sales tax and a 6% State sales tax (as we do in South Carolina) and a plethora of local-option sales taxes (about 2% here in Darlington County; higher in neighboring Florence County).  Tack on hospitality taxes, and it adds up fast.

For example, in neighboring Florence County, eating out automatically comes with a 10% sales tax:  the 6% State sales tax, plus local sales and hospitality taxes, totally 10%.  If we had a conservative 10% national sales tax on top, your $5 footlong (already gone—part of America’s mythological past) becomes $6 immediately.  20% sales tax means $1 of taxes for every $5 spent.  A $500 item would cost $600.

I still think that’s preferable to the income tax, and instead of creating a disincentive to work, it would create a disincentive to spend.

But I digress.  For a small nation like Vanuatu—population of around 300,000—a national sales tax makes sense.  It’s a small enough area geographically and demographically that it the national sales tax is, essentially, akin to a State sales tax.  As the article from FAIRtax.org notes, the island has something of a clean slate:  no welfare, no government pensions, etc.  Most people are subsistence farmers, and tourism is the major industry.

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TBT^16: End the Income Tax

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By the time you’re reading this post, I should have filed my taxes, and endured the annual reaming from Uncle Sam.  Now that my private music lessons have taken off (thank you, Lord!), I’m one of those productive members of society who has to pay through every orifice come tax season.

Hopefully those orifice contributions can pay for some poor child’s gender reassignment surgery, or to buy Volodymyr
Zelenskyy another ivory backscratcher.  One can only hope!  I’m confident my hard-earned dollars are in capable, unelected hands.

I doubt we’ll ever replace the income tax, but we should.  At the very least, we should make it less invasive.

With that, here is 14 April 2022’s “TBT^4: End the Income Tax“:

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TBT^4: End the Income Tax

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Here it is:  my annual call to end the income tax.  My disdain for the income tax is two-fold:  it’s incredibly annoying and invasive to file it every year; and it’s become a complicated, bureaucratic morass that attempts to social engineer our society by tweaking bits of the tax code.

I think there are downsides to a consumption tax—a national sales tax—but it makes way more sense than a tax on income.  Any tax is a disincentive to engage in the activity taxed, and no tax is perfect.  Being a necessity—perhaps an evil one—we should at least try to get the least bad tax possible.

Taxing income, then, is a disincentive to earning more income.  I faithfully track every dollar I earn in private lessons—even those paid in cash!—even though the tax burden is insane.  I suspect many Americans do not do the same, so there is already de facto tax evasion baked into an income tax.

A national sales tax would be virtually unavoidable.  That might be an argument against it.  Here’s an argument for it:  it would be a major disincentive against spending.  At a time when inflation is rocketing prices skyward, I don’t expect that such a proposal—which would make everything more expensive—will be very popular, but it would almost certainly encourage saving money.

Of course, you’d soon have all the other problems.  Industries would lobby for exemptions to the sales tax.  Should food be taxed?  If so, should it be taxed at the same rate as, say, computers?

Ah, well, forget it.  Let’s repeal the Sixteenth Amendment and let the chips fall where they may.  Tariffs aren’t so bad, eh?

With that, here is “TBT^2: End the Income Tax“:

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