Why Pay Taxes?

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0403-27.htm

Each year about this time, as many of us supplement our paycheck-to-paycheck giving unto Caesar, I raise this question. This year, let's start with the following observation from a reader, sent in the wake of the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. He notes that "terrorism" is defined, in Webster's, as "the systematic use of terror, esp. as a means of coercion," and provides a long list of examples, past and present, where the U.S. government has done exactly that. He then notes that under the current Patriot Act, it is now illegal to provide money to organizations that practice terrorism, and therefore concludes that as a matter of national security he must refuse to pay his federal taxes.

Now, it's unlikely that any IRS or federal court will agree with that novel conclusion, but our reader has a point. Why do we continue to willingly pay for programs and policies that put ourselves and our country (not to mention countless people in other lands) in greater danger? The bloodshed and corporate welfare in our name and with our money -- and our kids' money, and their kids', and their kids' -- raises an obvious but seldom-asked question: why do so many of us pay our income taxes?

[fasttense]

1. I've been audited and I can tell you

they will take and sell everything you have if you don't pay up.

The IRS went back through three years of my taxes looking for every little mistake and anything that might cost us. This happened while I was in the military. We finally got an accountant to go in and low and behold, they ended up owing us money. Until we got a tax accountant, the IRS was saying we owed them and were threatening to sell our home to get the money. It is nothing but a scam. If the accountant hadn't pointed out where we had overpaid, the IRS would have ignored it and we would have ended up owing the government even more money. As it turned out the IRS ended up paying us about $1,200. What a racket.

[midnight]

3. Hi Fastense.

We are going through an audit. They said we owed them alot of money. We asked to see the working papers several times via writing, and in person. We were told by the auditor and the rep. from the computer program that my husband used, that it did'nt matter. My question to you is, did you see the working papers?

[fasttense]

4. No, my husband and I never saw the working papers.

Our accountant didn't seem to care about them either.

[China_cat]

2. Because my husband's a resident alien

and could be deported if he didn't pay.