Taxing Truths About George Will And Taxes

Posted by Morbo

Every once and a while, George Will ties his bow tie too tight and cuts off the flow of oxygen to his brain. For some reason, this makes Will more lucid, and he actually produces a column that makes some sense. It happens about twice a year.

Recently, Will wrote a column about taxes. He made an interesting point that tax-phobic conservatives who talk about reforming the tax code need to face head on: Whether a state generates revenue through an income tax or a sales tax (or both), it’s a safe bet the system is riddled with exemptions placed there after lobbying campaigns spearheaded by special interests. In Florida, Will notes as an example, dog and cat food is taxed, but feed for ostriches and racehorses is not. This is because racetrack owners and ostrich ranchers have good lobbyists in Tallahassee, whereas the owners of conventional pets are apparently too lazy to get their act together.

Irrational exemptions like these, Will points out, make systems of taxation less efficient. That is, they don’t produce as much revenue as they could. He notes that it also makes them unnecessarily complex. At the federal level, Will points out, more and more people these days need professional help to prepare their taxes.

Morbo doesn’t even try to do the taxes; he’s strictly a Humanities man. Mrs. Morbo crunches the numbers. I just watched her use tax-preparation software to compile our federal return. After doing so, she patiently sat down with me and explained every little twist in the Byzantine tax code, pointing out all of our deductions and such. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I found that if every now and then I nodded my head or said, “OK,” she was none the wiser.

Will seems to be challenging fellow conservatives to deal with this issue. It’s a point well taken, and I thank him for it. See you in six months, George.