Perhaps one surprising aspect of “Tax Day” being on April 15th is that it wasn’t eventually pushed to May or June 15th – or beyond. That’s because it used to be March 1st, was bumped to March 15th in 1918, and then April 15th in 1955. Procrastination and taxes seem to go hand in hand.

Over twenty million people are expected to file Form 4868, an “Application for Automatic Extension of Time.” It buys taxpayers six more months to submit all the paperwork, but still requires filers to pay Uncle Sam by midnight Wednesday. The policy is the rough equivalent of your mom or dad writing a letter to your teacher asking for grace and explaining why you need more time for an assignment.

As of last week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had refunded nearly $242 billion to taxpayers and is expected to collect more than $5.26 trillion by the time the books are closed on the fiscal year. The big problem, though, is that the U.S. federal government spent over $7 trillion last year. Proportionally, it would be equivalent to you earning $100,000 in a year and spending $137,000.

“Deficit” talk comes up during election season but doesn’t practically mean too much to many. It’s reminiscent of Cosmo Kramer on the sitcom, “Seinfeld,” explaining to Jerry that big companies (and the Post Office) “write off everything.” Jerry replies, “You don’t even know what a write-off is.”

Kramer asks incredulously, “Do you?” Seinfeld admits he doesn’t. Kramer responds, “But they do, and they’re the ones writing it off.”

There’s a lot of people who know a whole lot more about taxes, including accountants who know how to legally write things off. But for perspective, here are some things I believe are true when it comes to Americans, “Render[ing] therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…”

1. We pay too many taxes. The fact that your income is taxed and then that same money is taxed again when you go to purchase something is a difficult pill to swallow.

2. Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but reasonable people don’t resent paying them for vital public services. However, they do get irritated with the recklessness with which the government has been known to spend their hard-earned money.

Recent examples include the State Department under the Biden administration shelling out $244,252 to a Pakistani organization to produce a cartoon for children about the dangers of climate change. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) doled out $40 million to social media influencers during the COVID pandemic to try and increase vaccinations within racial and ethnic minority groups.

We all remember the story of the government buying a $600 hammer or an equally expensive toilet seat. Experts dismissed the claim as an “accounting artifact,” which was technically true given the overhead costs figured into bureaucratic purchasing. But everyone would agree that the government should aim to pay competitive market rates for comparable goods, and justify any premium with clear, necessary requirements.

3. Businesses don’t pay taxes – consumers pay taxes. Calls from politicians to raise taxes on big business belie the reality of how companies pass the cost along to consumers.

4. Taxpayers should never fund the taking of human life or the physical mutilation of the sexually confused.
5. No tax dollars should go to investigate or address so-called man-made climate change. Fluctuations in temperature and precipitation are called ‘weather’ and the industry that fights it is either an historic sham or suffering from a grand delusion.

6. Public Broadcasting (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are controversial enterprises these days, but I would support taxpayer funds to find and develop the next Fred Rogers. Wearing the cardigan sweaters his mother made, Fred provided his young viewers what their hearts longed for and still do – love, unconditional acceptance, respect, kindness, forgiveness and an unjaded wonder-filled approach. Fred Rogers was medicine for the mind then and a prescription we desperately need now. 

George Washington, who lived and led well over a hundred years before the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, which ushered in the federal income tax, once observed, “No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.” He was acknowledging that every tax involves trade-offs between paying what’s necessary and what frustrates us.  

In the end, what’s necessary is for the government to leave taxpayers with more of their own money – and [gasp!] only spend what they collect.

Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email Paul@PaulBatura.com or on X @PaulBatura.