just pay your damn taxes!

[unblock]

culturally, we just tolerate anti-tax rants and gripes too much.
taxes are the price for living in a civilized society.
anyone can find some government spending of which they don't approve, but then again, there's also government spending of which virtually no one can disapprove.

so if you don't like your tax bill, feel free to consult a tax attorney or lobby your congressman.

in the meanwhile, just pay your damn taxes!

[Wickerman]

1. and avoid pianos

:shrug:

[blogslut]

3. LOL

What gets me is this guy obviously wanted to keep all his money but refused to rely on a professional who could have easily hid his money in tax shelters and offshore accounts.

[unblock]

9. sounds to me like he was your typical greedy antitax fuck who eagerly got conned by tax "pros"

there are lots of unscrupulous tax professionals out there who will, for a fee, lecture you about how taxes are actually unconstitutional or how you too can avoid taxes just like the big corporations.

while there are legal ways to reduce your taxes, some of these scammers go way too far. but it's not their name on the bottom of the 1040, so it's the taxpayer (or tax dodger, as the case may be) who goes to jail. thing is, you have to be a real tax hater AND super gullible to fall for it.

this guy seemed to get caught again and again and still couldn't get it through his head that maybe he was wrong. but, as been pointed out elsewhere, why look for rationality from a guy who rams his plane into a building....

[Rosa Luxemburg]

29. he must have been a closet Teabagger?

took it into his own hands

[HereSince1628]

4. Besides Barry Manilo who uses a piano as a weapons?

:shrug:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. He was flying a piano?? I don't understand. n/t

[rufus dog]

28. OK that was good

but I think it is the whole package with Barry, the voice, the songs, and the piano. The axis of evil.

[Spazito]

7. LOL! The piano thing as a business expense was bizarre!

That tidbit in his screed had me scratching my head.

[unblock]

18. he was a bass player.

if he earned income from performing, he could deduct certain expenses associated with it.
a piano might be deductible.

given all the trouble we know he was in, i suspect he did something like deduct the cost of the piano even though it wasn't actually used as part of the band -- perhaps claiming that playing the piano at home helped him perform the bass on stage.

[Spazito]

23. Oh, I have no doubt he tried to deduct it....

but, as you said he was a bass player, why the piano unless his wife is a concert pianist or something it made no sense, then again, most of his screed was less than coherent.

"But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle."

The piano thing just kind of hangs there.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. The tax code and tax structure is FUBAR.

We're going to see alot more shit like this the worse it gets for the middle and lower class.

[blogslut]

5. The man was not middle class

He was wealthy.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

10. Wealthy people get taxed quite a bit too.

I'm just saying... we're going to see more of this as the government sqeezes.

[blogslut]

14. No, we're not

We are not going to see wealthy people crash their private planes into government buildings.

Granted, if/when actual poor and middle class people become desperate, we will see more crime. However, this man wasn't some poor sot, being tortured by "the man". He was a greedy asshole who was too stupid to trust a proper accountant to hide his money in tax loopholes.

[unblock]

12. i f you believe his rant, he kept blowing it all

sounds like he had plenty of earning potential and if he had just lived a normal life and paid his taxes honestly, he would have done fine, maybe not rich, but well above average.

if/when he was rich, it seems it was mostly from not paying taxes (that sure helps with the family budget)!
of course, when the irs came calling, there went his savings.

[Don Caballero]

6. Seriously. These anti tax people should just leave our country.

If they do not wish to contribute to the life of our democracy they should just get to stepping.

[snappyturtle]

11. Excuse me? I don't think he was anti-tax over-all but rather to an

individual specific concern. He probably put in plenty. And, if I use your criteria, I guess I'm going to have to move because I seriously disagree with the way our taxes are spent. I'd like to be able to designate where my tax dollars go. imho

[unblock]

13. sounds to me from his rant that he kept using illegal ways to avoid paying taxes

i'd call that anti-tax.

if you want to make a distinction between "i think everyone's taxes should be lower" and "i think *i* should be exempt from taxes" fine, that's a distinction, but not a difference in the sense that they're both anti-tax. just two different flavors.

[leftofcool]

16. Me too. I pay my taxes but still don't have a voice as to where it goes

I think we should be able to specify on our tax returns where we want our money to go.

[Maru Kitteh]

24. Your voice is at the ballot box, same as everyone else's.

[Bluerthanblue]

15. and if you don't want to continue living- then make that choice, but don't

take anyone else with you.

all for what???? MONEY?

fuck money.

Ask the survivors in Haiti what it's REALLY like to suffer from lack of money- or corrupt government.

And then ask them how they-- with what little they have available, still manage to share with one another.

:shrug:

[TransitJohn]

17. Personally, I'm a fan of the 'ambulance chasing' tax attorneys on TV

Those commercials are a riot. "I owed the IRS One Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand dollars, and Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe got me a settlement of Ten Thousand dollars!"

My question is always, "Why were you cheating the government of their money so badly?" :rofl:

[gmoney]

25. They're all over "Personal Responsibility Radio" too...

Every program on talk radio is "personal responsibility" and "no more handouts" and every station break is "settle your debts for pennies on the dollar" and "get out of tax trouble for free"

[Joe the Liberal]

19. The problem with taxes in the US is......

that most of them go to the military industrial complex/useless military bullshit, corrupt politicians, corporations, criminal banks, Wall St, bonuses for the wealthy, prisons and a lot of it just gets wasted. I believe a large part of why people here in the US hate paying taxes so much is that they get very little in return for the taxes they do pay. That's my theory, the rest just hate paying them because of the fear mongering by the MSM and republicans using the meme of "all taxes are bad".

[unblock]

20. that is not a problem with taxes, it's a problem with spending

if the tax money didn't come in, military spending, corruption, etc., would still be the LAST things to get cut.

[Hannah Bell]

21. I tend to agree. I've read there's less dissatisfaction in higher-tax nations because

the benefits (e.g. 'free' medical) are spread more widely.

[alcibiades_mystery]

22. Word

Pay. Your. Fucking. Taxes.

People never grow up.

[Hansel]

26. It seems like the more money they make, the more the complain.

I'm sick of these people getting wealthy off of the cumulative taxes of all Americans and then whining because they are expected to pay their fair share for what they got out of it. A significant amount of tax dollars goes into the schools, infrastructure, security, legal entities, etc. that enables them to make large sums of their very protected money. The U.S. military almost exclusively fights wars to protect assets of the rich. Then they whine and boo hoo about how they have to pay so much in taxes.

Well go to Somalia or Afghanistan and run your technology business asshat. You wouldn't have had a house to burn down or a plane to crash. Or a damn piano. There are people who clean the toilets you crapped in that likely work harder than you did and get very little for it. So boo f*cking hoo. And they probably pay their taxes without complaining about it.

I'm not quite sure why the wealthy think it is up to the middle class to pay for them to get rich. The entitlement is nauseating and I f*cking sick and tired of our politicians, economists and the media constantly catering to these whiney self-absorbed pricks.

I'm sick of Reagan's tinkle on economics and the mindset that goes with it. America's workers all contribute to the ability for the wealthy to make money and get a hell of a lot less for it. Grow up people and stop the whine fest already. And start paying for what you have reaped so much from.

[unblock]

27. the problem is that most wealthy people do work hard, or were particularly clever at some point

rather few wealthy people have everything handed to them on a silver platter.
instead, they have a big lead at the starting gate that they take for granted. from there, they may run hard, or singularly clever, but they often lose sight of the fact that their parents' wealth or or connections gave put them in the position where their hard work had even had a chance of building extreme wealth.

bill gates certainly worked his ass off, but his huge success was due in no small part to his father handing him $5 million to get started. i don't know about bill gates' views on taxes, but i do know that most people credit him for his hard work and business genius without recognizing that he had an opportunity that is extremely rare.

i mean, i can only imagine what *i* could have acomplished if my father handed me that kind of loot at age 19!

anyway, these people usually DO work hard so they THINK they're entitled to everything they got paid, forgetting all the advantages they got from the government, or all the ways that the government put them in a position where their hard would could yield them as much money as they got.

hard workers at mcdonald's have a virtually zero chance of becoming wealthy, even if they consistently work 100 hours weeks.

[LWolf]

30. I do.

Every year. Filed by an accountant who checks to make sure every i is dotted and t is crossed. I pay him well to do so.

Last year, within 2 weeks of filing, I was notified of audits for 2 years running: 06 and 07. I didn't owe them any money, but it took a year of worrying, plenty of time providing documentation, repeatedly, and my accountant's time meeting with them, at his normal rate, to get them off my back.

I'll complain all I like.

[W_HAMILTON]

31. You know what's a good way to come up with money to pay your taxes?

Sell your fucking airplane.