Let me say from the onset, I do not rue paying taxes. I have benefited greatly from Medicare, particularly during my dance with the devil. I’m grateful my garbage is picked up curbside every week. I find great comfort in knowing either the police or the fire departments are a phone call away. And I adore I live within the boundaries of a fabulous school district. I fully understand these services are solely a result of paying taxes–no free lunch. However, I do have a BIG issue with IR$.

No, it’s not the amount of money I have to pay yearly; it’s the copious amount of paperwork and time-consuming preparation work. When my life did a 360 years ago, I knew there would be no way I could do my own taxes. I was not so naive to know I couldn’t add numbers, nor even begin to understand the tax laws. (The instruction booklet must have been written by writers from The Twilight Zone!) Thus, I hired the most reputable CPA firm I could find; my worst nightmare is the IR$ showing up at my front door and carting me of to jail for income tax invasion.

Yesterday, I spent over four hours sorting through piles of paperwork to take to my accountant. This yearly effort could be easily simplified if the IR$ would just send me a bill. Once a month, quarterly, or once a year. Just send me a bill! But no, I have to itemize my donations, deductions, interests, ad nauseum. Why? Big corporations, Bezos, Trump, and Gates pay no taxes, but schleppy Sue has to spend four hours on paying her pittance. Why?

The government knows full well how much money each of us earns per year, and I don’t think the feds should care how much we donate to charity, nor gamble at the casino, Just charge us all x-percent (including billionaires) whatever X is.

After seething about this, I did some research and found that the federal tax code has become a tome. The IR$ employs 75,773 folk and their average salary is $79,831. That’s in excess of $60 million. God only knows how many CPA’s, cottage accountants, and national HR Block firms there are. My epiphany! Long gone is the opportunity to restructure and simplify federal taxes; too many people would suddenly be unemployed. Colleges and universities would no longer need accountancy and CPA studies. Damn, America might even collapse.

So for the rest of my life, both you and I will spend hours amassing paperwork each spring to pay our convoluted bill to Uncle Sam.