A Slave to the IRS

Evan Maloney has an interesting article on his brainterminal site. He makes the point that while we turn over money to the IRS, we are essentially turning over our time. In essence, for a little less than half the day, most of us are working for the government, just to pay taxes.

To further stress the point he likens it to if, instead of handing over cash to the government, we were required to show up and work on a chain-gang for about half the day. In fact, he argues that some would have to work most of the day for the government, while others would work alot less, depending on how much they could make while off the chain gang. We don't look at life this way because we don't leave work or change our work to pay the government, it gets blended together.

I think from now on, while I'm at work, everytime it hits about noon, I'll declare to my co-workers that I've just finished working for the government that day and can start working for myself.

Evan also has an article on the Fair Tax, which is kind of consumption tax where you are taxed on what you spend, not what you earn. To counter arguments that consuption taxes hurt the poor more than the rich, the Fair Tax proposes to eliminate the tax for spending below the poverty level. I don't know all the ramififications of the tax, but thought it sounded interesting.