Via the Daily Caller today., I found this little snippet. It stands as that perfect example of the dangers of allowing government bureaucracies the authority to grant themselves power beyond their original mandates. This is one of the many bad things which happens when governments grow too big in both size and scope. Nobody has a handle on what they are up to, and the growth of the behemoth is uncontrollable, unwieldy, and impossible for anyone to predict what the next outrage will be. Some time last year, the undisputed king of big government recognized the ridiculousness of the problem and appointed one of his many federal czars to monitor the explosive growth of governmental overreach. Long time big government cheer leader Cass Sunstein, the man who proposed a holiday be observed on tax day each year to thank the big brother government for taking care of our every need, has been appointed by Barack Obama to tell little Barry when our federal over regulation becomes too onerous for the little people to bear it any longer. Somehow, I think he missed this latest attempt by the IRS to destroy the 350,000 small businesses who were giving tax preparation behemoths Jackson Hewitt, Liberty Tax Service, and H & R Block, some actual competition. There are many, namely the 350,000 individual tax preparers, and the Institute For Justice, who recognized this as the crony capitalism that it is.
This is not an argument about whether or not tax preparers should be held to some standard by the people who employ them. It is an argument about who are the best people to establish that standard, and who benefits the most from this government’s intrusion into the market place, a place by the way our founding fathers worked so hard to create a society where the government would never be allowed to intrude upon. The fact is, there are already a bevy of regulations on the books, even before this power grab which were designed to insure that consumers were protected against tax preparation fraud. I do not remember reading a single story of how unsuspecting citizens were targeted by gangs of errant tax preparers and subsequently had their lives destroyed. This is about three very large corporations lobbying legislators to eliminate that pesky competition, and doing so under the guise of protecting the little guy. The little guy of course is the American Consumer.
What are the results of this going to be? One, each tax preparer is now forced to pay a licensing fee. The fee in this case is $150. While that may seem small, that will translate into a figure of over $100 Million being taken out of the market place and placed firmly into the coffers of the IRS. They of course get to include it as a part of their budget, and this will make them happy. The three large companies who do tax preparation will also be forced to pay their share of the fee, but for them, this is merely the cost of eliminating competition, and they will pass this extra expense onto their clientele, who now have fewer options of where to take their business. So, the big three are happy with this. We consumers on the other hand, we get to pick up the tab for all of this. Our tax preparation costs just went up, and all we have is a guy named Cass Sunstein in Washington to protect us from a malevolent big government, who as it turns out is actually in favor of a malevolent big government to begin with. That’s not all though. The IRS as it turns out is offering, at a prohibitive cost of course, a class to train the tax preparers how to pass their test in order to become licensed. The class costs money, which of course enriches the IRS, and taking the test costs money, and guess who profits from that as well. As it turns out, this new government regulation is also a big money maker for the bureaucracy who inflicted it upon us, as they all are. The whole scheme is just another tax which is called something else, lest we realize it is a tax. These little bombshells are literally all over our daily lives, fees, licenses, little additions to the cost of our everyday lives, all designed to incrementally tax us without our realizing it. More than 53% of Americans are paying a Federal Tax. Only 53% of Americans realize it as such.
Another thing to consider is this. Who gave the IRS this authority? What part of their charter and establishment gives them the power to create their own legislation, and inflict their own power of taxation upon the public? Before anyone answers that I don’t know what I am talking about, that taxes are so important that only knowledgeable preparers should be allowed to perform this financial rocket surgery, keep this in mind. I myself have my taxes done by a CPA. That is my choice. CPA’s are more expensive than other preparers. I have made it my business to inquire about the qualifications of the person doing my taxes. I also recognize that many people in our society do not wish to pay the price that a CPA might charge to have their taxes done by this level of professional. That is not my business. By chasing the lower cost preparers from the market place, the very people who the IRS claims to be helping are hurt the most. The lower cost choice has now been removed from the market place, and in subsequent years, every level of preparer left will be raising their prices accordingly. They now have increased costs to pass on, as well as increased demand for their limited time.
Our government has run amok. The march of onerous regulation moves forward, and we are allowing ourselves to be distracted by asinine debates such as whether or not Gay People can ruin their lives or not by getting married or not. When Barack Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009, our nation ranked as the 4th most economically free society in the world today, a list in which we once held the number 1 spot. Today, we sit at number 10 on that list, and I am afraid to think of where we will be in 4 years if this little man child President were to be elected for another term. These are the kinds of things which should be hammered relentlessly during the fall’s general election. These are winning campaign issues.
