Well it's the dreaded April 15th [dramatic score] Tax Day!  Well – usually. This year the stars aligned and bought us 2 more days until the tax man cometh: April 17th.  But realistically, the tax man has been in your pocket ALL YEAR.  Thanks to the political genius of withholding the government already has your money – or at least most of it.  In fact their is a penalty if you haven't paid in at least 75% of your tax bill PRIOR to April 15th. 

Now a few still owe a reasonable amount of money but that shortfall is more than made up for by the saps that overpaid the government and gave the government an INTEREST FREE LOAN.  These are the same saps that rejoice at their huge refund and act like the government is giving them money. Guess what?  It was your money in the first place and if you were smart you would have had it last year.

Here's the math: a typical refund of $6000 means that you made a $500 payment to the government every month.  That would be a pretty nice car payment.  The government then graciously gives you your money back + zero interest.  If you want to give someone loans look into private mortgages… you can get 9-12%.  Afraid of the risk? Give it to me and I'll to a PM for 9-12% and give you a guarantee on your money and 1% return on your money.  That'd be a refund of $6600.  The crazy thing is that withholding is a fairly new addition to the income tax.  Surprised?

So what? We can't do anything… actually we can. The fair tax solves many, many tax issues (except that we actually do have to pay some taxes regardless the system).  Check it out:

• FairTax.org