Victory Over The IRS 2012!

OTR finished his taxes!

For you, Martie, wherever you are.

Tax Day In The USA

Powerline's John Hinderaker had the perfect observation on two headlines in today's news: 45% of Americans did not pay a dime in federal income tax and 43% of Americans thought their federal income tax burden was just about right.

Hinderaker linked to the stories and added only a few choice words that likely echo the thoughts of those--OTR included--who wrote Uncle a check today.

High Taxes Continue To Drive Wealthy Out Of Maryland

The Baltimore Sun has another report today about the effect of high taxes on Marylanders with net taxable incomes over $1 million. If you're a tax collector, the 30% decline is worthy of study. Has the recession reduced their incomes or have they abandoned the state for safer tax havens? Maryland faces increasing budget deficits next years and beyond and growing resistance to the state's effort to tax anything and everything. The taxmen had better hope an improving economy restores most of those millionaires to the tax rolls.

Maryland's Missing Millionaires

I've posted about this issue more than once. Sadly, nobody in Annapolis reads my blog.

One thing I've learned over the past forty years of adulthood is that real money has legs. Wealth travels frequently, often maintains more than one house, and provides far more life choice flexibility. I know about this through countless associations with others who happen to be wealthy. Although my career was in the public sector where one might expect an open-ended budget, the products and services my agency rendered were often funded through the generosity of wealthy individuals and the non-profit organizations they supported. These people were smart, productive, practical, and probably lucky. They learned how to make money, grow wealth and preserve it legally according to state and federal codes.

The nanny state of Maryland appears to be learning some hard lessons about its millionaire tax payers this year. When I left my home state in 1976, it had a rich, long-standing tradition of low grade political corruption, but it managed to pay its bills. Today, the odor wafting off the corruption is richer, but the state isn't. In fact, Maryland is several billion dollars "in the hole." To make up for spending money the state didn't have, a liberal legislature, at the behest of a liberal governor (O'Malley), passed a special tax on millionaires last year. This example of wealth envy and an attempt to "spread the wealth around" has resulted in unintended consequences for all Maryland taxpayers, especially those who are NOT wealthy.

Read the details here in the original - brief and to the point - Wall Street Journal article. Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link.

Tax Revolt In California: Coming To A State Near You?

For decades, California has been a trend setter for the rest of the United States. If yesterday's resounding defeat for taxation as a solution to California's multi-billion dollar budget deficit is the beginning of a new trend, an era of hard choices is descending upon the land. We are a society that has come to rely on debt as a means of acquiring our wants at any cost. That strategy appears to have run its course in many households. If voters have any say, that strategy is about to end in state houses as well. The time to face the hard decisions of where and how much to reduce expenditures is upon us. I think most states are like the federal government in that they have sizable entitlements that cannot be cut easily. That leaves them with a small bag of discretionary funds for chopping, dicing and splicing. I can hear the special interests protesting already, but what's a legislature to do?

The Internet is full of details of the California vote. I'll leave it to you to search them. No doubt we'll be hearing more from the voters who can no longer tolerate spending beyond taxation. We'll also learn how well they can adjust to living within their new means, and that's where I think the real story lies.

Money Really Does Move Away From Taxes

If you had any doubt about this post's title, here's a report by Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore in today's Wall Street Journal that will answer the question. Mobility is a powerful component of freedom . Until the nanny state politicians control mobility, they really can't depend on taxing wealth to satisfy their appetite for spending money they don't have. Thanks to George Moneo at Babalu for the link.

Tea And Sympathy

From all accounts, the national tea party held in 750 cities yesterday attracted around 500,000 people. It was good to see citizens exercising their freedom of expression regardless of political persuasions. The diffuse themes, varied programs, and range of attendance supported the belief that the parties were a grass roots effort.

The Atlanta party drew about 15,000 participants to the Georgia State Capitol steps. I'd say it was a typical political rally except for the hype added by the live broadcast of the Sean Hannity Show which began at the conclusion of the official rally. Actually, the Hannity program suffered from a sense of forced spontaneity. It came across to me like a premiere in need of a few more rehearsals. In addition, there were some less than inspiring interviews. I didn't watch much of the event, but I'll bet Hannity was glad to see it end; however, his program did attract 3.2 million cable viewers in prime time.

Interestingly, Fox News crushed the cable opposition yesterday. Perhaps that was expected as Fox is generally regarded as a right-leaning organization and the tea parties played to a primarily right-center audience. You'll get no argument from me on that issue; however, I do believe the network surely approaches better balance in comparison to its competition. That leads me to the "sympathy." Once again, I'm feeling for CNN as its viewership decline continues. The network has undergone several programming and staff changes in an attempt to stem viewer loss. Some changes appear to have worked, but the network still suffers from serious pitfalls. I liken it to rearranging the deck chairs on the RMS Titanic which, by coincidence, sank April 15, 1912. The CNN "deckhand" who rearranged the most chairs yesterday was Susan Roesqen. Here's why:



Is this journalism? Sadly, no. She helped sink CNN yesterday, but don't worry about her. She has a lifeboat called NPR and your tax dollars help keep it afloat. Isn't that special.

Forms Follow Functions

Here's a little diversion for Tax Day as well as Tea Party Day. This link, courtesy of Instapundit, shows the evolution of the federal tax from from 1913 to 2006. Will the form's increasing complexity lead to just one line reading, "Send in all income?" I've had a few years that seemed so.

We've come a long way from 1913 when the maximum tax was 6 per cent. Imagine that.