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That Season Will Be Here Soon ...

I like paying taxes.

I don’t exactly like giving my money away … maybe it would be more accurate to say I enjoy tax season. I like being a citizen of this country and paying my fair share — and I like grumbling and complaining about it along with everyone else in the spirit of shared burden.

From a certain vantage, that’s the greatest thing about taxes: Famously, like death, it’s the one great reward for a life well lived; and complaining about having to pay them is maybe the one thing that binds all Americans. We rightfully complain about the byzantine nature of the tax code and about the seeming arbitrariness of it all.

I totally understand not liking taxes, but I don’t understand people who don’t pay them. I don’t understand a corporate mindset that robs their fellow citizens, their own employees, of tax money owed and needed.

In certain political circles, tax cheats are lauded. Taking advantage of a system to cheat your fellow Americans shouldn’t feel good. Paying your fair share should be something you want to do.

At tax time I remember back to a below-zero night in 2008, to a dinner party I threw, when my brilliant idea to walk a shovelful of embers from the fireplace to the outside grill resulted in eight fire trucks from five municipalities spending the entire evening with us. While my guests dined, the firefighters used infrared heat detectors and knocked through walls and floorboards trying to catch a few sinking ember, basically saving my house from a backdraft explosion and giving my guests a fairly memorable evening.

When you pay your taxes, by all means, bitch and moan to your heart’s content. That’s half the reason why it’s such an important civic event. But do pay them. Even more than voting there’s no greater way to participate.

I’m Dan Libman, and that’s my perspective.

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