'Tis the Season for Taking

Washington Crossing the Delaware
Emanuel Leutze
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Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. - Benjamin  Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789

It is that time again, or nearly so - tax season. Many of you will have already done your income tax forms, if you're a denizen of these United States that is. Many others are just now downloading the forms, reading the instructions and giving serious thought to paying someone to do the paperwork for them.

Normally I wait until April to do my taxes, they were, for many years, rather simple. Once I retired from the Air Force they got a little more complicated, mostly due to the fact that I was making a lot more money on "the outside" as some are wont to say.

I would also wait as actually doing the thing would normally take me two days, one for Federal, one for state. It's not that the paperwork is onerous and time consuming, but that I like to take my time and make sure every "i" is dotted and every "t" crossed.

Mind you, those would be two days when I wasn't at work, that's right, I did them on the weekend. Which cut badly into my time for reading, playing, and reading some more.

But now? Well, I have the time for it, don't I?

I also started early as I started drawing Social Security last year which tends to complicate things, tax-wise. Now, much of one's Social Security may or may not be taxable, not all of it is, I can tell you from having done the paperwork. Thing is, when they start paying you, they don't mention a damned thing about taking taxes out. (What? They can do that? Of course they can, how many politicians do you know who aren't willing to tax anything and everything?)

In my case, zero was deducted.

So Uncle Sam is getting a nice check from me this year. As long as the stooges in Congress don't waste it, I have no problem with it.

And to be sure, Congress nevers wastes our money, do they?

If you believe that, can I interest you in a bridge?

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Author's Note: The painting of Washington crossing the Delaware is to recall those men back in 1775 who decided that they didn't like the taxes being levied upon them. To be fair, Parliament was within their rights to tax the Colonies. They just were arrogant about it. There's a reason for that motto on Washington DC's license plates. I don't like many of the taxes levied upon me, but hey, I do have representation, in theory. So ...