Sunday, April 16, 2006

Dammit Jim, I'm an engineer not a tax attorney!

Once again taxes have been a head-banging ordeal. It's become something like figuring out Fizzbin for the non-professional. Every year I say I'm gonna get an accountant, then I'm too busy or too out of town during the week to line one up early enough.

"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization," Ben Stein just said on CBS Sunday Morning, quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes. He doesn't mind that some might go to welfare or other waste in government. There is waste in any large enterprise, Stein acknowledged, and in his own life as well. Nor does he mind that some of his tax money goes to support military families.

Unlike many of my more government-hating friends, I will "cheerfully pay for my little bit of civilization," as Stein put it. It's the paperwork nightmare we can't stand.

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