Four Easy Eights

No one likes taxes, but most of us see them as a necessary evil. I learned in the fifth grade that taxation is how governments discourage certain behaviors. The whole idea of income tax confuses me. Why would any government want to discourage people from working? Half a dozen years later when I got my first real paycheck and saw how much money I didn’t get to keep, it made even less sense. This year, in the wake of the IRS scandal, more people seem to be seeing income tax as an evil we could do without. Senator Ted Cruz has said, “We need to padlock and shut down the IRS, and move to a flat tax or the Fair Tax.” Senator Rand Paul is calling for the “attrition if not an outright elimination of the IRS.” Former governor Mike Huckabee suggests repealing the 16^th Amendment, calling income tax a punishment. Maybe this year we’ve finally been punished enough.