My Take On Tax Returns

I have been meaning to get to this subject for quite sometime, but it has been hectic as of lately.

I have been thinking lately on tax returns and have come to notice how many people plan on using their tax returns for this or that and it made me stop and think.  Why are we so excited about a tax refund in the first place?  After all it was our money to begin with and the Government is ever so graciously letting us have it back (dripping with sarcasm).

Why is it that the Government takes our money and then returns it at the end of the year?

Well here is my take on it.  A tax return check is just a way for the Government to make you believe that they are giving you something back, but in reality they are just giving you your own money back. 

So why do they take it in the first place?  The only thing I can figure is they take our taxes and invest it in the country and then they keep the earnings off of this investment.  This is the only reason I can see that the Governement would take and tax our  paychecks and then give us the money back at the end of the year; otherwise why would they take it if they never needed it in the first place?

If this is indeed the case would that not be wrong?  I mean would you put your money in a savings account that the bank got to keep all the interest earned?  I wouldn’t.

I figure they go this route instead of having us just pay our taxes in full at the end of the year as it is easier to use our money for pork barrel spending this way.  If they were to send us a tax bill to pay in full at the end of the year instead of a tax return after we fill out our tax forms I would have to believe that people would pay more attention to where our Government has decided to spend our money.

Of course we have to pay taxes as our country could not function without them.  If we did not pay taxes how would our Military, Emergency Services (Police/Fire), and other necessary functions of legitimate government expenditures receive payment.  I do feel that their are better ways to collect taxes that would be fair across the board and make people really stop and wonder what their taxes are being used for.

My top choice would be a Federal Sales Tax.  I believe that this would be the best route to take as everyone has to purchase goods and services.  Of course there would be somethings that would be exempt from a sales tax such as food, housing and medical services as these are necessities to sustain life.  By going over to a Federal Sales Tax I truly believe that we could cut the size of the IRS down as there would no longer be millions of personal tax returns and the savings in this one cut would be tremendous.

The Top Two Primary System In Washington

Once again the top two primary system is in the news, but this time it is due to some candidates getting creative with their party label they are listing on the ballots.  Some are not listing anything at all (like Curtis Fackler, who is running for state insurance commissioner) or they are getting very creative with labels: America’s Third Party, The Party of Commons and The Salmon/Yoga Party.

As the FoxNews story I linked above notes that even Dinno Rossi has opted for G.O.P. (Grand Ole’ Party) instead of using Republican, but then again Dino already has name recognition and most people know that GOP is synonymous with the Republican brand.

Though FoxNews does note that one Republican is not backing off calling himself a Republican at all.  Steve Beren had the following to say:

“Have bold colors, wave the Republican flag boldly. Wave fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, immigration conservatism — boldly,”

Good for Steve for standing up and telling the voters who he is and what he stands for.  The real down side to this creative labeling is that it has given the Democrat party something other than the issues to talk about and that will only hurt all the campaigns.  Just see what Dwight Pelz had to say about it:

“Dino Rossi and these folks that are trying to hide the ball … they’re trying to hide who they are, what they stand for, where they come from. I think it’s shameful,”

I am sure this is just the start of what the Democrats will use as a way to steer the direction away from issues such as Gregoire’s out of control spending (and the benefits of it to her donor’s) and McDermott’s calling our troops mercenaries.