By :
Mark Etinger
I always had a deep-seated fear of taxes. When I was growing up they seemed so…adult. Like cigarettes and electric bills, those things that you vaguely knew made life more complicated as you aged and balanced out the goodness of being able to freely walk into any establishment and rent a car. Taxes were simply another impediment to freedom. I didn't really understand when I was younger that taxes are actually the price you pay for freedom. To live in a functioning society, everyone needs to contribute, and when those who don't try to evade the IRS collections, find loopholes and curtail their losses, it means they're that much closer to imprisonment by the IRS collections agency. But for those who pay their taxes, even if it means tax debt relief, they are one step closer to being able to go anywhere and do anything they want, drive on the roads and see the national parks those very taxes help maintain. This I learned in my eighteenth year. I wore my hair long, rode a motorcycle and didn't believe that the politicians in Washington were doing any good. I thought that all my tax money went to feeding homeless people and paying for senators' pensions. I turned my back on taxes, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal, that anyone could get away with tax evasion so long as you maintained a low profile. So barely before I began my adult life(and the freedom that I thought came with it) I was already in danger. But then I got a notice from the IRS collections and realized that they meant business. So I worked out a payment arrangement with the IRS and resentfully paid my taxes -with interest. But as I aged, I realized that taxes do a lot for every citizen. They allow us to maintain our roads and bridges, they keep the streets safe by paying police and firefighters, they send our troops abroad in times of need, and they allow our children to grow up knowing about the history of our great nation. That payment arrangement was the first step in truly understanding my freedom, and how paying taxes aren't a burden on it, but a way to maintain and protect the many freedoms we all hold dear. I'm just glad I fixed my attitude when I was young; that allowed me to proudly pay my taxes and never wait till the last minute again.
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