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August 11th, 2008 YES, TAX EVASION IS THE SAME AS CHILD MOLESTATION One of the things I love most about my job is the never ending parade of abject stupidity I get to witness on a daily basis in the form of totally ignorant, uninformed comments from various people. Last Friday we read a letter from “Eric in South Dakota,” who was wondering whether or not he should report his own father for evasion of taxes. The dad in question had not file taxes in more than 20 years and has a long history of choosing to ignore rules and laws he doesn’t agree with. During our discussion, we debated the challenges, merits and morality of “selling out your own family,” which led to various people claiming that it was a matter of degree. Overwhelmingly, people affirmed that if the charge was child molestation, they would absolutely turn in their father (even though, I must point out, this has not proven to be true in most cases. Most famously and recently, Jonathon Couey’s family knowingly allowed him to remain in their house with little 9 year old Jessica Lunsford held hostage for days while he repeatedly raped her(5)). Most, however, disagreed on the charge of tax evasion. I challenged such assertions and simply asked people to defend their logic. That position garnished me the following letter sent to our website: The fact that you think not paying your taxes is the same as child molestation Where to begin? For the record, in the context of our conversation, my answer is absolutely, yes, tax evasion and child molestation are the exact same. I say so confidently and with no apologies, for I am not an idiot, unlike the letter writer who simply had an emotional, irrational response while having no understanding at all of the conversation we were having. Our discussion was on the merits of turning in a family member who was breaking a law. Laws are black and white when it comes to whether or not they are being violated. Whether or not a punishment should be meted is where the grey area lives, and we were not discussing such. Rather, we were focusing on a federal crime of felonious proportion. Tax evasion over the course of 20 years is hardly a victimless crime (the rest of us literally foot the bill for such deadbeats) and justifying not turning in such a person on the grounds that he is “sticking it to the government that sticks it to us,” is intellectually dishonest and down right embarrassing. We are the government. We create, tolerate and allow the rules we live by in this nation. If you feel as though you don’t have a voice or your politicians don’t care about you that is quite literally your problem and also is no justification for committing any form of crime. Furthermore, feeling as though you are being screwed over by “the man” is hardly justification for harboring and/or hiding a felon. You either believe that it’s appropriate to turn in a family member for a felony or you don’t for reasons related to loyalty, familial bonds and the like. Hiding behind the “nuclear” example of a molested child as your argument is cowardly and pathetic. Beyond the letter writer’s total inability to comprehend English, there are so many other things that are sad, pitiful, infuriating and totally inaccurate in his or her message (I don’t know the letter writer’s gender because while they had the courage to attack me personally, they didn’t show the same amount of bravery when it came time to sign their name). - The income tax was not created or designed for “the rich.” Just the opposite, in fact. The income tax was initially imposed to pay for the Civil War in 1862 and taxed people earning as little as $10,000 in today’s dollars ($600 annually in 1862) (1)&(2). It is only in the 20th century when the war of classes began in America that “the rich” were targeted. - Blaming “corporations” and/or demonizing them in America is stunningly ignorant, offensive and beyond reproach. Those of us who take tremendous personal and financial risk to create corporations large and small do not ask to be hailed as heroes, but it would be nice if we weren’t demonized for literally making the country run. I wonder who it is, exactly, that would be employing hundreds of millions of Americans were it not for evil “corporations?” The truth of the matter, of course, is that America taxes its’ corporations at a rate higher than all other industrialized nations in the world, save one (Japan, and that hasn’t worked out too well in the last two decades for a country that was once an economic giant) (3). Beyond that, corporations (and more specifically their CEOs and board members) are the biggest philanthropists in America and, as a man who owns a corporation, let me state unequivocally that the only people who believe corporations are tax shelters are people who have never owned or run a corporation. - The assertion that the middle class and/or poor in any way participate in the tax bill of America is completely false. More than 96% of all federal income taxes are paid by half of our adult population; the half that earns the most. Those of you who define yourselves as “lower middle class and poor,” the bottom 50%, pay 3.9% of all taxes paid. Or, put another way, the top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%. Far be it from me to use facts in an emotional, illogical argument but there is little more maddening than people who argue things which are abjectly false. The truth of that matter is that the letter writer hates success and successful people (because clearly the letter write is a failure at life) and therefore doesn’t care about the truth. For those who want to actually learn how the country works, the truth of the matter is that those Americans living the best lives are providing the lifestyle for the rest who aren’t doing so well. Ironically, we punish success in America (4): Here are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay: As for who earns what As with all cretins, this letter writer eventually reveals his or her true colors by attacking me personally and generalizing a stereotype that they obviously believe to be applicable to all successful people in America, proving my earlier hypothesis of what a clear loser in life the letter writer must be. I have never understood begrudging other people success, but I certainly don’t understand being so mad that someone else is successful and you are a failure that you then therefore wish pain and suffering on that person. Sadly, that is the class warfare debate of America today. Those who feel that the rich “don’t pay their fair share,” (which we have just proved is not true), argue that rich people should be paying even more. Yet no one has ever explained to me how making rich people suffer makes the poor happier. Life is not a Robin Hood novel; the money is not literally handed to poor people and nor should it be; in America you earn your keep. In the letter writer’s world, we simply will take the money away from the rich people and create an entirely “equal” society and somehow people like the letter writer will feel better about themselves, not based on anything they did or earned, but rather on petty vengeance. Perhaps I am overanalyzing this, so forgive me this last digression; Is it not stunning that a person can be so angry at life that they hear an intelligent debate about family politics and immediately turn it into a referendum on their own ineptness? I am willing to bet that the letter writer is far from the life of any party and most likely lives every breathing moment they have for, through and about their children. Because sadly, the only accomplishment the letter writer has ever had, or ever will have, is reproducing…something every mammal on the planet is capable of. Way to aim high. 1. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html
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