I try to keep this blog as clear of politics as possible but it is the time of year I can’t help but vent.

Imagine if you will the scene at a grocery store where a woman has a two hundred and fifty dollar bill. She hands the cashier three hundred dollars to pay for said bill and when she receives her fifty dollars of change she shrieks “Oh, I have fifty dollars. I am so glad for this time because now I have more money.” The cashier and those around her look at her peculiarly as she dances away thrilled with her new found fortune.

This would be a strange event would you witness it but daily this time of year. People are thrilled to get their tax refund without realizing that it is nothing but change from a bill they have been paying all year. Only in this case the government holds your money all year so that they can earn the interest on it instead of allowing you to spend it on what you wish. This was started to bring in extra money to pay for WWI but has continued because according to the Department of Treasury:

This (withholding) greatly eased the collection of the tax for both the taxpayer and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. However, it also greatly reduced the taxpayer’s awareness of the amount of tax being collected, i.e. it reduced the transparency of the tax, which made it easier to raise taxes in the future. (History of the U.S. Tax System. U.S. Department of Treasury. Retrieved on 2006–10-31.)

Ask many people how much they pay in taxes and they have no idea or even worse they may say “None, I got a refund this year” not even realizing they have merely gotten change from a bill they have been forced to pay without their knowledge or even consent.

According to the Tax Foundation people work from January 1 until April 30 just to pay their taxes, one third of our labor is just to pay the taxes on that labor. And this date is getting latter and latter every year, but most people never realize it because they have been drugged with the chemical of withholdings. Wake up and pay attention to the amount of money taken from your pay check, the thousands in income tax, the hundreds in social security (you will NEVER see again), and hundreds more in other taxes.