Common Sense of the Osage

I have a habit of saying "I am just a country boy" and most folks respond, "grab your hip pocket".  The other thing I like to say is, "I may be a little slow let's look for some common sense in this".

I was working on my taxes and everyone knows that in life there are only two requirements:

• you are gonna die
• you are gonna pay taxes

And one more thing you might not have heard and that is what does "THE IRS" do for you?

You should notice that "THE IRS" owns everything because if you put The and IRS together you get "THEIRS"  and that is the real meaning of the IRS.

Anyway, back to my point, I was looking at the IRS rules about itemized deductions and non-itemized deductions and they have a table for "standard deductions".   Basically every person married, single, divorced, widowed or head of household gets a basic $5,800 per individual deduction.  Now I may be slow but if everyone "who pays income tax" gets the $5,800 deduction then why have it "at all".  it is a waste of time and money to have to educate everyone and then probably pay an accountant to figure all this mess out.  By the way did I mention there are more tables for more deductions?  Why wouldn't we just make the tax paying folks pay based off of a rate table without the deductions?  Does that make sense?  One last point so you won't think I am crazy but they say it is to make it fair for those who do not itemize but my point is just lower the tax rates and get rid of all the exceptions and tables.  If you would like it I can make this seem a lot more complex and discuss 2% floor of AGI, etc. but let's keep our "common sense".

Now I know that if you are a CPA or Tax Lawyer this is probably offensive but let's get real and stop this stuff.  

So what did I learn in the Osage?

• A little common sense for politicians would not hurt
• The IRS who interprets the laws could use some common sense
• If we all used some common sense and a little forgiveness we would not need lawyers
• Don't offend a lawyer you might need one, WHOOOPPPPPPPS!

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com