Via Steve Benen, I see that Donald Rumsfeld sends the IRS a letter every year when he files his taxes. Here it is:
I have sent in our federal income tax and our gift tax returns for 2013. As in prior years, it is important for you to know that I have absolutely no idea whether our tax returns and our tax payments are accurate. I say that despite the fact that I am a college graduate and I try hard to make sure our tax returns are accurate.
The tax code is so complex and the forms are so complicated, that I know I cannot have any confidence that I know what is being requested and therefore I cannot and do not know, as I suspect a great many Americans cannot know, whether or not their tax returns are accurate. As in past years, I have spent more money that I wanted to….
Etc. Two things here:
- As a longtime feeder at the public trough, Rumsfeld is surely aware that the IRS isn’t responsible for the complexity of the tax code. Congress is. He needs to write an annual letter to his representative in Congress instead. As a resident of Washington DC, of course, he doesn’t really have one, but that’s a whole different story. However, I’m sure Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton would be delighted to receive his letter anyway.
- The big reason taxes are complicated is because people do complicated things with their money—often with the express aim of lowering their taxes. Nobody is forced to do this. If you want, you can just add up all your income and pay the statutory rate without worrying about deductions and loopholes and capital gains rates and so forth. That will make your taxes easy. But if you’re the kind of person who has enough money to hire expensive accountants to manage your carefully tailored investments, then you have enough money to pay those accountants to do your taxes too.
In any case, none of this really matters. No matter how much Rumsfeld pays in taxes, it will never be enough to make up for the damage he’s done to this country over his lifetime. He should stop whining. He owes us.
