TAXES - A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE!

By Edwin Cooney

So, you're a taxpayer! Me, too! I don't have a sufficient enough income to pay the IRS but, like most Americans, I do pay taxes.

The taxes I pay are invariably passed on to me by those who do pay income taxes. They include my landlord, my grocer, my doctor, and the owner of my favorite watering hole. Even my church needs more money. The point is that we all pay taxes. Even more to the point is that most everyone will benefit in one way or another from today's take by Uncle Sam.

Here's a reality for you: your taxation and mine is in some ways quite profitable. One of the ways Americans are resourceful is how they create industries to overcome the downsides of their existence. For example, hundreds of thousands of Americans earn a healthy living each tax season by selling their expertise to the public as tax consultants. Another reality is how we Americans over the centuries have very cleverly industrialized and subsequently even profited from all kinds of woes. Taxes pay for our education. Taxes pay for our common defense whether caused by foreign invasion, disastrous weather conditions, disease epidemics, fires, or earthquakes.

I was struck some years ago by an observation former Governor Jerry Brown of California made about our national campaign against cancer. What he said opened a vein of positive thought for me. "I suspect," said Brown, "that there are more people living off cancer than are dying from cancer." The same could be said about the vast components of our struggle against disability and even hunger.

I think we'd all be a lot better off to the exact degree that we allow ourselves to modify our outlook on the laying and collecting of taxes. Let's try a few paradigm experiments:

1) Might a taxpayer's duty be as vital to the nation as that of a soldier? Isn't a taxpayer equally as valuable as the service of a policeman or a soldier?

2) How many plays, movies, or even books are there where the taxpayer is the hero? If it is brave to put one's life on the line during wartime, isn't the person who shares their wealth with others equally so? If a soldier is gloriously patriotic shouldn't a taxpayer be considered a patriotic hero?

3) Are you a victim or a hero when you honor your income tax obligation?

4) If “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down," might we all benefit if we legislated some reward system into the taxpaying structure and process?

5) Since people like being rewarded even as they do what they ought to be doing, perhaps April 15th could be a federal lottery day: pay your taxes and have the chance of earning $20,000 while performing your patriotic duty.

Beginning with Ronald Reagan, conservatives have wanted John and Susie Q. Citizen to hurt when they pay their taxes because people in pain will resist that which causes pain. The fact of the matter is that politicians on both the right and the left have lists of vital priorities that invariably cost money — which inevitably comes from taxes. All politicians (and unhappily there are no exceptions) are both rescuers and fixers. If they weren’t, we wouldn't elect them.

Until the day comes when a taxpayer is a hero or a winner, April 15th is bound to be nothing but painful.

I say, smile when you pay your taxes! I will if you will!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY