The blog I author is a logical extension of
my 9 to 5: to educate you about our tax system and the relationship that system
has to our declining quality of life, or total lack thereof. As an IRS
employee, I am not allowed to share my political opinions with taxpayers on the
job, which is part of the reason I author this blog, I am using an obvious
pseudonym to shield my identity from those who may not share my opinions on
methods of reforming the country, specifically, my fervent belief that
democracy can only flourish when people are empowered to make their own
decisions for themselves unfettered by the bureaucratic entanglements of
government. I betray no secrets by revealing that my employer’s middle name is
Revenue, yet it makes only a token effort to collect any for the benefit of the
working taxpayers whom it supposedly serves.
Callers to the 1-800 IRS help line I staff can generally be divided into two age groupings: those above the age of 65 who are calling because they want to be compliant with the tax laws and pay their fair share, and those under the age of 65 who want to use the tax laws to make sure they DO NOT pay their fair share. One can surmise that the inception of Social security, which came after most “senior citizens” had already entered the workforce, engendered in future generations an attitude of entitlement that subsequent generations use to justify their philosophy of avoidance of taxation (and work in general), but this supposition relates more to social theory and less to tax law. Whatever the reason, those of us who answer taxpayer calls know that most older callers feel duty-bound to pay their taxes while most of our younger callers believe that taxes are an evil to be avoided at all costs to the nation.
I believe that the writing warrior’s sword is
his conscience, and I would be derelict in my moral duty were I not to reveal
the brutal truth of the matter: every time I give you leave to apply a credit
to your 1040 return, every time I give you the official IRS stamp of approval
to deduct from your federal income taxes money that might improve your quality
of life, but does so by sacrificing the nation’s quantity of income, I am doing
so at the expense of your children and America’s unborn progeny. For those who
may not know, it is Congress that writes the tax laws, the IRS merely enforces
them. The IRS collects your money, and the Congress spends it. By no sheer
coincidence, the logo of the IRS is the bald eagle. I didn’t have to work long
for the IRS to figure out that the eagle is bald because members of Congress
use the IRS to feather their own political nests to such an extreme extent that
the eagle has literally been plucked baldheaded.
Long before “Schindler’s List” won academy
awards, I knew that evil flourishes when good people stand back and say
nothing…do nothing. Through this blog I can say things, do things that I could
not say or do as an employee of the IRS. For the purposes of this blog, I
express only my own views, as an individual American born with an inalienable
right to self-expression. My views should not be associated with those of my
coworkers at the IRS or ascribed to my employer. That required disclaimer
notwithstanding, it remains my firm, albeit contrarian belief, that it is the
incontrovertible duty of EVERY IRS employee to remind those for whom so many
sacrifice so much that freedom ain't free, and we must all pay our required
dues of citizenship.
You have probably figured out from my
reference to “Schindler's List” that the study of history is a personal hobby
(obsession) of mine. As such, my favorite book is William L. Shirer’s “The Rise
and Fall of the Third Reich.” The book’s epigraph has always resonated with my
love of history: “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” As a
reporter, Shirer was an eyewitness to the Holocaust of World War II; my
employment with the IRS has likewise made me an eyewitness to the Holocaust
inflicted upon Americans, not so much to specific atrocities, but to the
general disenfranchisement imposed upon American workers by the machinations of
an autocratic tax system.
I always relate the apathy and self-delusion
of the German people who bore silent witness to the European Holocaust to those
in America who lobby Congress for tax benefits that contribute to a future
American holocaust. A specific lesson from the European Holocaust can be
instructive: On April 13, 1945, the United States Army captured the Ohrdruf
concentration camp outside the town of Gotha in Germany. Ohrdruf was a holding
facility for prisoners on their way to the gas chambers and crematoria at
Buchenwald. The German townspeople from the communities surrounding the
concentration camps denied any knowledge of the Holocaust in spite of glaring
evidence disproving their feigned naiveté: smokestacks that billowed putrid
smoke 24 hours a day; rumors of holocaust permeating every German town and
village; and decades of Nazi propaganda asserting Jewish qualifications for
extermination. After Gotha fell to the Allies, Supreme Commander of Allied
Forces in Europe, General Dwight Eisenhower, ordered every citizen of the town
of Gotha to tour Buchenwald so as to dispel any future claims that the town had
been ignorant to the crimes of the Holocaust. After touring the camp, the mayor
of Gotha and his wife went home and hanged themselves.
It is for this reason that I author this
blog: so that no American taxpayer calling IRS demanding tax deductions and
credits today can later claim, from the carefree confines of retired life,
comfortably reclined in their rocking chairs, that they had no idea that they
had signed, in their youth, IOU’s to foreign powers in the names of their
children so as to lower their own taxable income at the expense of future
American generations. My study of history and my observations of human nature
granted me by the IRS has conferred upon me this sobering revelation: whether
it be a holocaust or deferred tax revenue, ignorance is never bliss to those
who have to pay the ultimate price.
No comments:
Post a Comment