The Hidden Federal Income Tax Increase

State governments have been cranking up taxes with gusto. Most think the federal government hasn’t, but it is doing so in a sneaky manner.

Most government agencies have had to cut back given spending constraints. One has not. Why? It has been shown that for every dollar it spends, it brings in 10. That is a heck of a return and one that makes politicians in Washington D.C. love it. I am, of course, talking about the IRS.

The IRS has been seeing its budgets rise each and every year since President Obama has been in office. In truth, the last few years of Bush Part Deaux also consisted of rises. What is the money being spent on? Hiring new auditors to go after supposed tax cheats.

At first glance, this may seem like a good thing. If you and I have to pay taxes, so should everyone else. Yes, but this is not the way the IRS works. The IRS assumes everyone is a tax cheat and audits accordingly. If you’ve ever been in an audit, you reach a point of emotional stress where you are pretty much willing to pay whatever the agency wants just to put an end to the process. It is truly soul crushing. If you are innocent and capitulate, however, you are a tax cheat.

Ah, but the IRS is just collecting legal taxes right? Yes and no. I am not one of those people suggesting the government can’t tax us. That being said, the IRS is designed to be a pit bull and go for the throat. It does just this. Consider the telephone excise tax.

We fought the Spanish-American War in 1898. Don’t recall it? This is probably because it only lasted six months. While short, we needed to fund it. This was done via the long distance telephone excise tax. The only problem is the tax was not terminated when the war ended. The IRS fought against termination and it wasn’t until 2005, nearly 107 years later that it was finally put down. Now you know why people hate the IRS.

Let’s look at it another way. If the IRS sent you a letter saying you owed an extra $250 and to send in a check or be audited, what would you do? Most people would send in the check!

Have your federal taxes gone up? No, so long as you aren’t audited by the IRS. If you are, I wish you luck because it will be the rare taxpayer who doesn’t end up paying more…a tax increase of a sort in these modern times.

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