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Reblogged: Make a Juggernaut, Get Run Over

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Conservative commentator Bruce Bialosky describes some particularly asinine scheduling practiced by the Internal Revenue Service:

... [W]hen we received this message from our tax software service we were quite taken aback; "The Internal Revenue Service's electronic filing system will be shut down for maintenance from October 11-13 reopening sometime on October 14
th
." I contacted some colleagues who were just as stunned. They expressed they were mystified as to what the IRS was thinking shutting down this close to the end of [the extended] tax season. One then informed me that not only is the IRS system for electronic filing (required for all tax preparers and the predominant means of filing all tax returns today) shut down, but their system for electronic payments would be inoperable also. Many taxpayers today either prefer electronic payments or may be required to do such.

Bialosky complains that "[t]he IRS still does not get they serve the people of the United States". I was with him until then: Confiscating money from American citizens in violation of their right to property is not and can not be service -- not in the sense of proper government service, anyway. I am unfamiliar with Bruce Biaolosky, but he comes across as someone who would have no problem with the IRS continuing to subject us to myriad ridiculous rules en route to taking our money, if only it would do so more efficiently and politely. I beg to differ. (That said, the IRS ought to be made to make compliance as easy as possible until the day we are able to abolish it.)

The imperious disregard for just how anyone is supposed to live up to its rules, as described by Bialosky, may be incredible, but it is really just a symptom of a greater problem. When a people become comfortable with the idea that the government can take money from some to give to others, how can they complain about niceties such as being able to fork it over easily? And when so many demand abuses on a grand scale (such as income taxation) from our government, neither outrage nor surprise at such lesser abuses (as Bialosky describes) is really appropriate coming from anyone who isn't completely opposed to doing so.

Rather than whine about bureaucrats taking Columbus Day off, Bruce Bialosky should have warned us that we are being kicked around, and that we ought to stop asking for it.

-- CAV

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