Common Sense Relief

Ah, the Fall! The air is crisp, the weather cool, the leaves are turning and the candidates are attacking. That’s right, it’s election time too and just in time for Halloween it seems there’s even a witch running for office! It’s the same old thing really. The Democrats are begging for time and saying that it takes time to crawl out of the hole the Republicans dug. The Republicans are saying that the Democrats are only making things worse and putting our grandchildren’s grandchildren in debt.

Of course taxes and tax cuts are hot button issues, so I find it just a bit more than ironic when my television switches from Democrat attack ad to Republican attack ad to…something called American Tax Relief. Have you seen this commercial? It features a bevy of smiling, happy couples who say things like: “We owed $3,000,000 in taxes but thanks to American Tax Relief, we only wound up paying less than $1,000,000!” Or, “We owed $60,000 in taxes and we only paid $300! Thanks American Tax Relief!”

My question is this: When did the IRS start bending over like that?

Would you like to know how much I paid in taxes last year? If you guessed every bit that I owed, you’d be right! That’s how taxes work. Isn’t it? You, or your accountant, figure out what you owe and then you pay it. Apparently, if you don’t pay it though and you wait a few years and then go to American Tax Relief they can settle with the IRS so that you pay only a fraction of what you actually owe.

It makes me wonder why any of us actually pay our taxes at all? Why not just hold out, spend that money and then settle for a significantly smaller amount at some point in the future? Does anyone else find it kind of insulting that the politicians keep blaming each other for all of our problems and meanwhile there’s some company out there who’s entire purpose is to help people not pay the taxes that they owe?

We do have a deficit don’t we?

“We owed $400,000 in taxes, but thanks to American Tax Relief, we only paid $60,000!”

Is it any wonder why we have a deficit? I understand its better to collect something than nothing but if the settlement amounts being reported on these commercials are true, we the people are getting screwed!

Then I watch some more of these political attack ad commercials and I listen to the “issues” they talk about. I can’t help but wonder why or how we ever expect things to get better when we keep electing officials based on issues that don’t really matter. Gay marriage isn’t going to get us out of debt. Abortion isn’t going to fix our foreign policy or win any wars. Whether or not someone used to be a witch doesn’t have any bearing on the unemployment figures. Maybe we the people aren’t so different from the IRS after all. We’re owed great things from our government and we accept a parade of clown college rejects. I wonder if American Tax Relief brokers elections too?