Taxes

In todays paper there were several stories that revolved around taxes. Talk of Missouri getting rid of income taxes for a higher sales tax on everything. There was another story about states wanting to get taxes from online purchases that aren't taxed.

While I understand that government needs taxes in order to fund the programs and services they provide, they seem to only think of ways to grab more income to make up for their shortfalls. It doesn't seem that they learn to work smarter and leaner as normal businesses or individuals have to.

I always seemed to get riled up around this time of year, because I hate tax season. I hate the complicated tax code, that no one truly even understands, yet we are held accountable for any mistakes we might make on it, when filing our taxes.

I have always been for a flat tax.

Then there is this interesting information:
"federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to support the Union's Civil War effort. It was eliminated in 1872, revived in 1894, then declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the following year. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system."

The 16th amendment reads:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."