Every year just before April 15, I drop a bad check in the mail to the IRS for whatever crazy number that my accountant says that I have to send them. My banker has a legacy of being willing to loan for taxes and I test that out. His premise of thinking is that if you are paying taxes, you are making money so that is a positive thing.

I hope that he keeps thinking that. I pay my fair share of taxes. I pay a fair share so that the IRS should not have me at the top of any list for not having paid enough relative to reported income. You hear of corporations or individuals who have high reported incomes who pay little in taxes. I have no idea how they do that. I am not disgruntled over the amount that I pay. However, I pay them plenty enough. I have no wish to pay them more.

Our government should be able to function off the taxes that I pay them without having to shake me down further. My country and my state have been good to me and I feel a responsibility to pull my weight. We pay federal, state, capital gains, property tax, self-employment and sales tax in Iowa. I have some income from about every pool that there is, including social security so am taxed at a myriad of different rates.

They are progressively reducing our Iowa state tax over time. I appreciate that. As they impact me, the numbers are arbitrarily fair enough. Some I am sure feel differently. I would not feel that way if paying inflated property taxes in Nebraska or Ohio. I would not feel that way if my family was facing the estate tax levied in Minnesota.

Our current tax system has been a long time in the making and has adjusted over time. It has become a compromise from extremes. I cannot imagine the top tax rate of 91% when John Kennedy was president. He “reduced the top marginal rate (on income over $100,000, roughly $848,000 in 2021 dollars, for individuals, and over $180,000, roughly $1,527,000 in 2021 dollars, for heads of households) from 91% to 70% and reduced corporate tax rate from 52% to 48%.”

That still would have been like France.

I do believe that… after we have paid federal and state income tax, property tax, sales tax and a hundred other taxes that whatever wealth that a family has managed to accumulate over generations is synonymous with the “American dream.” What after-tax dollars that they have invested in assets should belong to families. Others call it “generational wealth.”

This asset class has become the primary target for additional taxation by the current administration. Somehow, they seem to think that if you have succeeded and have benefited from the ‘American dream” that you should then be penalized for it.

I see us as having paid the dues along the way. They have even suggested taxing unrealized capital gains, which shows they have little understanding of wealth and how desperate that they are to go after it while it is just still a dream.

Ending the stepped-up basis on capital gains in estates and allowing the current estate and gift tax exceptions, which sunset at the end of 2025, to lapse are the primary focus of their efforts to change tax policy. The estate is the bedrock asset of family farms for the ag sector and while they make small concessions for family farms and small businesses in their tax proposal, they are more deception than accommodating to us.

Granted, Republicans have always championed lower tax rates and Democrats have always reached out for more. There needs to be balance struck between the ideologies, and extremes in either direction end up causing problems with consequences. Although Republicans espouse to abhor public debt, they have been just as culpable in accumulation of the national debt as the other has.

This political back and forth over levels of taxation has been going on a long time and, in my opinion, it has actually reached a place where we can live with it today. I think that our current tax burden is tolerable and I would be cautious over changing it. There is a certain balance that supports productivity and that is encouraged by an income incentive that can be harmed if high rates destroy personal incomes so earners do not keep enough of what they make to work for more.

We have to pay for the government services that we consume, while the government doesn’t consume our incomes. If the government cannot pay its bills with the current level of tax revenue, then it is spending too much.

Everyone is likely to see where the balance is a little differently.

Sure, close tax loopholes so that there is tax adherence, but full draconian tax collection could be counterproductive. People need to pay what they owe but without turning the IRS into thugs harassing taxpayers.

The GOP has attempted to hamstring the IRS from aggressive tax collection by severely limiting their budget. There is a balance that needs to be reached here too between how hard we want the IRS to come after tax payers and how tightly that we want the tax code enforced.

Some believe that there is a lot of money that should be paid in taxes that is not being collected because IRS enforcement of laws and rules has been undermined by its limited budget. This was done on purpose to curtail the IRS.

We are about to see this change dramatically as Bidens Inflation Reduction Act swings this pendulum widely in the other direction. A headline blared, “Biden’s (budget) Doubles Down on Supercharged IRS with $43.2 Billion Request.” They estimate that $600 billion currently owed, escapes collection and that going after this cash trove will reduce the deficit. This is an overreach that I will be willing to venture results in many subscriber audits.

So, leave taxes where they are, keep the IRS on a leash and focus on reduced spending so that it is serviced by the existing revenue. And above all … Do not kill the American dream by increasing generational taxation. Estates have been made with after-tax dollars.