Tax Man

You probably remember the Beetles song,

“(If you drive a car, car)
I’ll tax the street
(If you try to sit, sit)
I’ll tax your seat
(If you get too cold, cold)
I’ll tax the heat
(If you take a walk, walk)
I’ll tax your feet

It’s that time of year – time to reckon with the Tax Man. I’ve been doing this gig since I was 20, I think. I’m 72 now; so, that’s a half century. In the beginning, I did my taxes with a pencil and paper forms. The last three decades or more, I have been doing them on my PC with commercial software that the tax-filing industry has extracted concessions from the government to make work-a-day stiffs like me pay for the privilege of reporting to the government that which the government already knows. Okay, I’m not a work-a-day stiff anymore but rather a retired stiff; the crime is no different – government has been captured by the fintech industry. All hail “Free Enterprize!” Fuck the proletariat – that’s the way billionaires are made. And, the health of our economy is measured in billionaires, is it not?

I’ve been working on my taxes the last couple of weeks. I get bits of 1099 detritus from this bank and that investment house – this retirement management enterprise, and that annuity house. America has become more about pushing paper in order to exploit the lifetime earnings of its people than actually making stuff that the people need – housing, transportation, food, goods and services. No, we have an economy built on bets – how we can use your wealth to make more wealth tomorrow – mostly for ourselves, but we’ll cut you in for a margin, of course.

I have most of my 2021 tax information input into TurboTax now, but there are still more forms that I will not receive until March. Alas. We are all of us fucked not just by our government but also by the enterprises that our government has blessed to fuck us all on its behalf.

I’m feeling like a cheap whore tonight.