This is an easy one, except for the part about limiting it to thirteen things…
1. The taxpayer is always guilty until proven innocent.
2. Withholding. See #1 and add in, “Where’s the interest on the money stolen before it’s really due on April 15?”
3. The forms, the forms… *arrrrrggghhhh!*
4. About #3… I’m sure the IRS can make the print smaller and the paper of crappier rag, but I’m unsure whether they chose the ink for its ability to cause an allergic reaction leading to total mental breakdown or if that’s just a psycosomatic reaction…
5. “Advice” from the IRS. First, can ya think “Conflict of interest”? Then, go ahead: ask the same question of three (or four) folks with the IRS. You’ll probably recieve four (or five) contradictory answers, most of them designed to cause you to get a nastly letter down the pike from someone else (or sometimes the same dumbasses) saying you are in error for following their counsel. Catch 10648 (that’s Catch 22 cubed).
6. Following on 5, if the IRS makes a mistake, IT IS YOUR FAULT. Remember that one: IT IS ALWAYS YOUR FAULT. It’s a simple corrollary of number 1.
7. Paying the borg for the priviledge of being financially and mentally raped. Thank you, Mr. Revenooer… We pay the IRS’s wages, exhorbitant operating expenses (and screwups associated with “updating” the RS’s antiquated computer systems, etc.). So, naturally, as with other feddle gummint bureaucracies, those who pay the costs are the slaves of the servant. Figures. (See the Kipling cited in “Read more here” below *sigh*).
8. The lies I. The taxes you pay to the IRS on or before the April 15 deadline every year reflects your effective tax rate to the feddle gummint, right? Nope. That’s a baldfaced lie. You also pay ALL the taxes on ALL the goods and services (added up all down the supply chain to the end user/consumer) of ALL the businesses producing goods and services you purchase (on those goods and services you purchase). Your effective tax rate is really more like at least double what you see on April 15 every year.
9. The Lies II: Pictures like this at the smarmy IRS website:
Instead of the more honest:
10. The very thought of IRS drones feeding at the public trough. Just think: if even half of them worked at productive jobs instead (while the other half went on the public dole), we’d be far, far better off.
11. Tax courts. See #1 again.
12. Damned snoops! (And I think I may well be using the term with theological accuracy–*heh*) Even friends of tax collectors get their own place in Dante’s Inferno, IIRC…
13. The ultimate indignity: being forced, by a monstrous tax code, to pay one shark (or more!–tax lawyer, accountant, TurboTax *spit*, whomever) to snatch a small portion of one’s carcass from the jaws of a bigger shark.
I could rail all day, but then I’d probably be singled out (may well be already) for harrassment by the IRS.
Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub and Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Random Yak, basil’s blog, Stuck On Stupid, Conservative Cat, Faultline USA, Right Celebrity, Allie Is Wired, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Pirate’s Cove, Overtaken by Events, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, High Desert Wanderer, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
About that IRS monstrosity…
“A Servant When He Reigneth”
Three things make earth unquiet
And four she cannot brook
The godly Agur counted them
And put them in a book —
Those Four Tremendous Curses
With which mankind is cursed;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Old Agur entered first.
An Handmaid that is Mistress
We need not call upon.
A Fool when he is full of Meat
Will fall asleep anon.
An Odious Woman Married
May bear a babe and mend;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Is Confusion to the end.His feet are swift to tumult,
His hands are slow to toil,
His ears are deaf to reason,
His lips are loud in broil.
He knows no use for power
Except to show his might.
He gives no heed to judgment
Unless it prove him right.Because he served a master
Before his Kingship came,
And hid in all disaster
Behind his master’s name,
So, when his Folly opens
The unnecessary hells,
A Servant when He Reigneth
Throws the blame on some one else.His vows are lightly spoken,
His faith is hard to bind,
His trust is easy boken,
He fears his fellow-kind.
The nearest mob will move him
To break the pledge he gave —
Oh, a Servant when he Reigneth
Is more than ever slave!Rudyard Kipling
I love it especially #9. Take heart soon it will be over for another year.
It’s “over” for this year, Robyn. Fortunately (for me) my Wonder Woman had all the reciepts, checks, etc., I needed at hand, as usual. It still took an inordinate amount of time (IMO). I’d like to be able to charge the IRS my hourly rate for all the compliance B.S. Were taxpayers able to do that, the IRS would be shut down overnight, and we’d go to something more like the Fair Fax (which doesn’t need an IRS to implement or support it).
When I think that a few pennies’ tax on tea was an instigating factor in the American Revolution…
*sigh*
I’m afraid to comment here. I have personal experience with the absolute power of that particular agency and their methods that you linked to in the post. I’m not saying anything. Won’t go there EVAH again.
See how brave I am to even be typing this!
We won’t ever see the fair tax precisely BECAUSE it doesn’t need the agency to implement it – can’t do away with that agency … no.
I know it had to be hard limiting this to only 13 – I understand completely. But look at the positive side. It’s not just once a year. We get to pay taxes on all our property, everything we buy and so much more. It’s really every single day.
Even better, people like us don’t have to worry about benefiting from any of the programs our taxes support!!! We aren’t poor enough and we are legal citizens. The very fact we CAN and DO pay taxes means we are exempt from receiving any services.
See. It’s all good.
For anyone eavesdropping. The IRS is a wonderful institution and I would nevah say anything bad about the IRS. I know they only have our best interest at heart. Truly! Please don’t come after me. Please. Thank you.