Tag: taxes

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War on Christmas, Diversity, and Secularism

Americans have always been divided over morality, politics and religion

Fresno Bee, December 1, 2017

Our country seems more divided than ever. Recent polls from the Pew Center and the Washington Post make this clear. The Post concludes that seven in 10 Americans say we have “reached a dangerous low point” of divisiveness. A significant majority of Americans think our divisions are as bad as they were during the Vietnam War.

But let’s be honest, we have always been divided. Free people always disagree about morality, politics and religion. We disagree about abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, drug legalization, pornography, the death penalty and a host of other issues. We also disagree about taxation, inequality, government regulation, race, poverty, immigration, national security, environmental protection, gun control and so on.

Beneath our moral and political disagreements are deep religious differences. Atheists want religious superstitions to die out. Theists think we need God’s guidance. And religious people disagree among themselves about God, morality and politics.

As an example, consider the so-called “war on Christmas.” President Trump declared victory in the war on Christmas this week during a speech in St. Charles, Missouri. Standing in front of American flags and Christmas trees, he said “You don’t see Merry Christmas any more. With Trump as your president, we are going to be celebrating Merry Christmas again and it’s going to be done with a big beautiful tax cut.”

DISAGREEMENT IS AS DEEP AS CHRISTMAS ITSELF.

Some will cheer this on as a triumphant moment in the culture wars. Others will say, “bah humbug,” claiming that the war on Christmas is fake news. And others will wonder what tax cuts have to do with the birth of Christ.

Christmas has always generated controversy. Different Christian traditions celebrate it on different days. Some Christians – the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example – do not celebrate Christmas at all. They point out that the apostles did not celebrate Christ’s birth. They view Christmas as a pagan celebration.

Disagreement is as deep as Christmas itself. The Christian “good news” was viewed as fake news by the ancient Romans. The history of Christianity is full of heretics and dissenters who offered alternative facts. Each religious sect claims special access to the truth. Each views the other as delusional.

And of course, we disagree about the value of disagreement. Some value diversity of opinion. They are interested in new ideas and interpretations. Others see diversity as a decadent sign of liberty run amok. They resist change and avoid innovation.

And so it goes. Social cohesion is rare. So let’s not be surprised by our divisions. The ideal of a cohesive social, political and religious identity is a myth that creates frustrated expectations. People disagree about important stuff. We always have – and probably, we always will.

The desire for social cohesion is a pipe dream, cloaked in sepia-toned nostalgia. It is fun to imagine a Norman Rockwell Christmas scene. But life is not a painting or a Christmas card. We change, argue and diverge.

WE SHOULD VIEW OUR PRESENT DISAGREEMENTS
AS A SIGN OF THE HEALTH OF OUR SECULAR SYSTEM.

There is wisdom in admitting this fact. We might stop hyperventilating when we realize that the current crisis is nothing new. It is wise to stop expecting conformity.

It is also wise to support safeguards that protect liberty against oppressive power. The Christmas story includes a warning about political oppression in the presence of Herod the Great, the murderous king. Of course, such warnings are routinely ignored in the effort to purge heretics and dissenters.

Our secular system safeguards us against would-be Herods. But secularism means that disagreement will persist. This does not mean we should give up on arguing about the truth. But we must admit that disagreement is part of the human condition.

In fact, we should view our present disagreements as a sign of the health of our secular system. People are free to criticize or praise the president, the Congress and Christmas itself. This is not true in other parts of the world.

Freedom leads to controversy. Freedom without disagreement would be paltry and phony. Along with the freedom to say “Merry Christmas” we also have the freedom to say “Happy Hanukah” or even “bah humbug.” Take your pick. Stake your claim. Realize that other people will say different things. And be thankful that in our country the war on Christmas is merely a war of words.

http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article187350558.html

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Tax Cuts and The Class Divide

Is our economy naughty or nice when workers face hard toil and wealthy ease into riches?

Fresno Bee, November 24, 2017

The class divide in our country becomes apparent this time of year. The affluent celebrate with a binge of buying. The working class is busy stocking shelves, running cash registers and waiting tables, thankful for the overtime. The homeless suffer on the margins, begging for handouts on the side of the road.

These disparities are worth considering as the country considers tax reform. The details are yet to be determined. But most agree that tax reform will make rich people richer.

Ironically, not all rich people think that this is a good idea. A group of 400 wealthy people – including Steven Rockefeller and George Soros – recently signed an open letter to Congress arguing against tax cuts for the wealthy

This letter singles out efforts to eliminate or reduce the estate tax as an example of unneeded reform. The estate tax helps to redistribute private wealth, taking it from wealthy families and using it for public projects. The estate tax is only an issue for the richest Americans. According to the Washington Post only about 5,000 families are affected by the estate tax.

The working class does not possess enough wealth for it to pay this tax. The median net worth of American families is about $80,000. The estate tax only affects couples with more than $11 million in assets.

Those disparate numbers indicate the inequalities that exist in our economy. One recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies claims that the three richest Americans own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the American population. And the combined wealth of the top 400 people on the Forbes list of richest people is more than the bottom 64 percent combined.

The Christmas season seems an especially bad time to consider exacerbating wealth disparities. Scrooge and Grinch remind us of the dangers of greed and the need for charity. The Christian gospels teach that we have a special obligation to care for the poor, to give to those who beg, and to avoid the worship of wealth.

Of course, the critique of wealth is counter-cultural. We live in a casino culture. We all seem to hope that somehow we will strike it rich. We don’t view wealth as a sin. Instead we hope it will trickle down. And we are not worried about fitting the camel of wealth through the eye of the moral needle.

One significant social problem is that wealth disparities tend to become magnified. Unbridled capitalism tends to concentrate wealth. Those with the most money earn the most money.

And much of what the wealthy earn requires little actual work. The capitalist puts his money to work for him. A fortunate few inherit their wealth and live off the fruits of their parent’s labor. The rest of us work and save. Many are one paycheck or one medical emergency away from homelessness.

This reward structure seems upside down. We might think that those who work the hardest should earn the most. We might also suppose that those who do the most essential or dangerous work should be paid the most.

From this point of view, there is something shameful about living off an inherited estate. From this perspective, farmworkers, teachers and police should earn generous rewards. But the reality is that the working class struggles to make a living, while the fortunate few enjoy financial security.

Shoppers crowd into JCPenney on Thanksgiving afternoon in the quest for Black Friday deals. The holiday shopping season brings forth the income disparities that exist in America, says Bee ethics columnist Andrew Fiala. He notes that the working class need special deals to afford higher-end goods; the rich can buy whenever they choose. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA Fresno Bee file

The holiday shopping frenzy reminds us how divided our economy is. The wealthy don’t fight the crowds for a Black Friday deal. They buy what they want when they want it. It is the members of the working class who need a bargain. Teachers and farmworkers elbow each other aside to get a door-buster deal, while the wealthy roll their eyes.

None of this really makes any sense. In a humane world, the homeless would be housed. In a moral economy, hard-working people wouldn’t need to work overtime to afford Christmas gifts and rich people wouldn’t simply live off inherited wealth.

The dream of a fair and decent world may seem too much to hope for. But this is, after all, a season of hope. It is also a great time to ask whether our economy is naughty or nice.

http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article186350658.html

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Tax Reform

Couldn’t we find a better way to collect taxes?

Fresno Bee, April 15, 2016

  • The tax system provokes anxiety
  • A simplified tax code would inspire confidence
  • Tax day could be a patriotic holiday

Revelations about offshore tax havens and tax evasion do not inspire confidence. A recent story indicates that 20 percent of profitable American corporations don’t pay any tax. Loopholes and exemptions benefit some. But most of us pay, without imagining ways to evade the tax collector.

Taxation leaves us cold. Voting warms the heart. The Fourth of July is fun. But no one celebrates tax day or pledges allegiance to the IRS. The country might benefit from a rebranded tax system.

April is certainly a good month to reflect on taxation. According to the Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day will occur this year on April 24. That’s when we will have paid off our collective tax bill. April 19 is Patriot’s Day, which commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord, fought in 1775. Emancipation Day is celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 16, commemorating the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia in 1862. These holidays are among the reason our taxes are not due this year until April 18.

Why not combine all of this in a patriotic holiday that celebrates liberty and the need to pay for it? Some libertarians may object that taxation is a form of slavery. But real slavery involves whips and chains. Taxation may be a drag. But it is not slavery. Instead, it is the cost of living in our country.

Of course, no one pays more than the minimum. And if you don’t pay, you’ll get arrested. If taxation is not quite slavery, it is also not a freely given gift. But taxes pay for obvious benefits: schools, roads, insurance and protection.

Not everyone agrees about how our tax dollars are spent or how much should be collected. Our elected representatives are supposed to make sure that there is no taxation without representation. They might also consider simplifying the tax code.

Even for those who understand taxation as a civic obligation, tax documents are infuriating. Those brave and deluded souls who file their own tax returns confront a system as convoluted as anything Franz Kafka could have imagined.

IN THE END, THEY KNOW WHAT WE OWE. SO WHY CAN’T THEY SEND US A SIMPLE BILL, AND SAVE US HOURS OF TEDIOUS TAX PREPARATION?

Kafka’s characters often suffer at the hands of alienating bureaucracies. Kafka once said, “the chains of tormented mankind are made out of red tape.” The tormenting red tape of April flows out of the dreaded 1040 form, its inscrutable instructions, and its tiresome schedules.

The problem begins with the impersonal and unimaginative name for this document. Why is it called “1040”? For that matter, who named the W-2 and 1099 forms? The authors of these torturous documents should be given a course in basic composition. Alienating and bureaucratic jargon infect the whole. The taxpayer is victim to indecipherable prose.

Leaving rhetoric aside, you would think that the government would simply tell us what we owe. Other bill collectors send an invoice. But income tax returns are different. You tell the government what you think you owe.

The IRS already has some idea, of course. They have our W-2s, 1099s and the withholding taxes we’ve paid. It is up to you to inform them of adjustments, deductions and exemptions. The process is absurdly convoluted. When you make a mistake on your return, the government sends a correction. In the end, they know what we owe. So why can’t they send us a simple bill, and save us hours of tedious tax preparation?

One explanation looks to the interests of tax accountants. A 2013 report from the Sunlight Foundation indicates that the tax preparation industry spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying against proposals to simplify the tax system. According to one industry website, the tax preparation industry generated $9 billion in revenue in 2012, with expected growth toward $11 billion in 2018.

April is certainly a good month for accountants. It is also a good month to reflect on the cost of good government and the need for a transparent tax system. Our byzantine tax code and its loopholes provoke angst and outrage. Liberty is lost in this labyrinth.

They say that nothing is certain except death and taxes. But there are better and worse ways to die. And there should be a better way to collect taxes.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article72043462.html#storylink=cpy