My last 2 cents

Feel privileged to pay federal, state and municipal income taxes? Enjoy the state sales tax? Pay the county tax months ahead of time? Happy to fork over the township tax? Smile while submitting the school tax? Can't wait to hand over the capital gains tax? If yes to all the above you have a mutation that provides you joy snuffing out cigarettes on your forehead and scratching yourself with a rusty wire brush. How about the more obscure fees like toll roads and bridges, hotel and occupancy taxes, dog license fees, vehicle registration, death and estate taxes, professional license fees, federal and state gas taxes, hunting and fishing licenses, recreational vehicle registration, tax on tires, vice taxes on cigarettes, liquor and gambling, parking fees, park entrance fees, luxury vehicle tax, and retirement taxes like social security and medicare. And the really, really obscure methods of government financing like lotteries, gambling, state run liquor stores ............ Still smiling or puking up your last dollar!!

How about the peripheral costs associated with these taxes, fees and other money sucking methods. For example, the bureaucracies needed by the government agencies for collecting, processing and of course, jailing subversives. We commonly think of the infamous IRS, but each tax and fee needs a corresponding bureaucracy to administer and enforce the laws and rules and to collect the moola. How about the paying side that wants to spend Christmas with their family and not between Bubba's hairy cheeks. Companies need bloated sized bean counting organizations to administrate their product and service proceeds and to make sure uncle gov gets its mandated share. Even small companies need CPA's on staff or retainer to keep themselves out of jail. How about the average wage earner that needs to hire H&R Block to fill out their 1040EZ form and pay a pencil geek $250 for the privilege. Then there's all the tax attorneys. You know, the brethren of the attorneys that wrote the laws so only other attorneys could understand them.

Then there's the incurred costs that are cleverly disguised as improving social order. Examples include all the rules and regulations that add cost to products and services. Meat inspectors, health inspectors, EPA and OSHA regulations, equipment safety requirements....... Guess who pays. And of course, some more obscure costs from bureaucratic and local politico decision making. Every traffic light and stop sign causes loss time and fuel expenditures. Mis-engineered roads cause premature vehicle wearout and abnormal maintenance. Nonsynchronized stop lights cause traffic blight. I could go on adinfinitim but I just ran out of money.