The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Opinion

Today’s Editors’ Choice

• Jeff Jacoby: An Uncivil Income Tax System
• Stephen Moore: Coal’s Colossal Comeback
• Dennis Prager: Two Weeks of Great Clarity

To view all of today’s opinion, click here.

Opinion in Brief

Jeff Jacoby: “Some people claim they file their tax returns cheerfully. They approvingly quote Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.‘s dictum that 'taxes are what we pay for civilized society.’ I quote instead that eminent commentator Dave Barry: ‘It’s income-tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil and stab yourself in the aorta.’ … Our tax code’s lack of clarity — and the flood of special-interest giveaways and preferences that make it so cumbersome — has turned innumerable taxpayers into cynics. Americans conclude that the whole setup is rigged, and that only a sucker doesn’t bend the rules in order to pay less or finagle a bigger refund. How many people who wouldn’t think of ripping off a local charity or business don’t hesitate to cheat on their taxes? In such an environment, it isn’t only compliance rates that suffer. Some of the civic virtue so important to a healthy society is lost as well. Jimmy Carter was right in 1976 when he called the U.S. income tax ‘a disgrace to the human race.’ Thirty-six years later, it’s more disgraceful — and maddening — than ever.”