Taxes Are Not the Mark of Civilized Society

This year's tax day falls on Tuesday, although most Californians have a reprieve until October if they live in a county that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has deemed a disaster area due to recent flooding. On its website, the IRS tells taxpayers that it's a "win-win" to file earlier, although the only real winners are the federal treasury and your accountant.

Thanks to the World War II-era system of withholding, most Americans don't grasp the level of taxes they pay. It's an old truism that Americans might take to the streets if there were no withholding—and they had to pay the state and federal tax-collection agencies in cash at the end of the year. That way, they would know exactly how much they have to fork out to the government each year.

Even with the current setup, Americans have every reason to be infuriated by the local, state, and federal taxes they must pay. At which point my progressive friends love to quote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society." The quotation is carved above the entrance at the IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C.