I had to write checks to the United States Treasury and the Franchise Tax Board today. They are relatively small amounts but I don’t let that fool me. They’ve stolen my money all year long in the form of withholding. For 2005 I paid $1,253 to the Federal Government and $210 to the State of California. Not much compared to some people, but that is a whole month’s salary to me. There is no way I can recoup that much in services from either the state or federal governments, so basically it’s going to go to someone else.

I am a big fan of the idea to end withholding from paychecks so everyone would have to pay a big chunk of money to the government all at once so it would be more clear to them how much they take. Couple that with making election day the same day or the day after tax day and things would change.

technorati tags: taxes