The 15th is an important day for me this year. My first book will be shipped to those who bought it on WorldNetDaily, and the 15th is also tax day, a deadline for the first year I have to pay taxes.
Wait a minute! I’m only 14; I’m underage. I don’t have to pay taxes, right? Au contraire, my friend. Once again, the United States government is penalizing American citizens that choose to be productive.
To those who read my column and pay taxes, this is nothing new. However, it’s new to me. When I heard that I earned enough last year to pay taxes, my first reaction was outrage. First, I’m paying so little in taxes, compared to my parents for instance, that it wouldn’t even make a small scratch in the multi-trillion dollar federal budget.
Second, in addition to federal and state income taxes, I’ll be pouring money into a Social Security fund. A Social Security fund that I have no chance at getting. Aware and young taxpayers have accepted the fact that they will have no Social Security pension when they retire.
Lastly, I am 14 years old. Memo to government: That’s a whole four years under 18. What happens when you turn 18? Hopefully you register to vote, but primarily, you have the right to vote at that age. So, what exactly does that mean? It means that I am a minor, too young to vote, and I must pay federal and state income taxes to a government that does not represent me.
A few hundred years ago, some angry men had a party of some sorts and threw tea into the Boston Harbor. Those patriots called it “taxation without representation.”
In the “Great Epochs in American History, Vol. 3,” concerning the Stamp Act and its repeal, William E. H. Lechy wrote, “The doctrine that taxation and representation are in free nations inseparably connected, that constitutional government is closely connected with the rights of property, and that no people can be legitimately taxed except by themselves or their representatives, lay at the very root of the English conception of political liberty.”
Taxation without representation was a key part of the American Revolution. It is interesting to me now that I am facing the same thing 250 years later (though not to the same degree).
This is not an isolated problem. It’s something that teens around America submit to without thinking. A high-school student becomes productive by landing a part-time job and is penalized when he hits that threshold of being too productive.
So, what do we do about it? Should we grant voting privileges to all those who pay taxes? This seems fair, but not responsible considering the current state of America’s youth. How about barring all taxes for those under 18? This also sounds fair, but many fear that parents would funnel their assets through their children, thus avoiding high taxes.
Look at it any way you wish, but this is a problem with no clear-cut solution.
Granted, when comparing it with the real problems of the day, this tax problem won’t see a ray of light – and there’s nothing wrong with that. For me, it is a personal (and now financial) connection to the way things were when this great nation was founded and to the way things are now.
It is ironic that the financial assets gained through this breach of liberty will be used to fund a power-grabbing United Nations through our unconstitutional treaty, fund an unconstitutional Department of Education, fund an unconstitutional welfare program, support the insane things coming out of Congress, and will fund a variety of other “useful” federal programs.
I’m about to go write a check out to the United States Treasury. Happy Tax Day.
