The House of Reps has passed a one-year AMT relief package, which seems to be generating a fair amount of buzz.  I say:  Big deal.  Not just because the Senate has torpedoed the possibility of this patch becoming law, but because our tax code is so terribly twisted and warped that a minor edit like an AMT fix means little.  It’s like waking up with terminal brain cancer and jumping for joy when you discover that huge zit on your face went away overnight.

Of course, moaning about taxes is nothing new, but never have I seen discussed what I consider to be the most paramount issue with it.  Having just finished with the first (and only) Federal Tax course in my legal studies, I’ve become quite familiar with the code’s innerworking, developing a level of intimacy as appealing as Michael Jackson’s with the tan little boys giddilly scampering ’round his surreal DisneyHell estate.

My biggest complaing with the code is its absolute disregard for the fundamental legal concept of notice.  Ignorance of the law is not an excuse because, in theory, a democratic government provides laymen (not laypeople, hippie) like me with some access to the laws to which I am subject.  It’s unethical and archaic for a government to draft laws and hide their parameters from the populous the laws control; mens rea is central to criminal punishment because nearly everyone understands the immorality of punishing people for behavior they were never told was illegal. 

Our tax code is perhaps the most egregious example of failure to notify on the part of the government, and millions of Americans fall to the repeated blows of the 1040 “EZ”’s convoluted structure every spring.  And as we curl into fetal positions of intellectual meltdown, the IRS hurls its mighty foot deep into guts and groins when processed “EZ” forms throw up an army red flags in D.C.  Honest mistake on your taxes?  No problem…as long as you’ve got personal property and free time on your hands the IRS is happy to send vengeful dorky-tax goons, grown cold and callous from decades of exclusion from the society cool kids hang out in, to sieze what you own and throw you in prison until you’re able to pay the deficiency. 

Their facial explanation makes sense:  they need to make examples of tax cheaters because the government fails without revenue.  But draconian and mercilous punishment is never just, especially when the punishment is dished out for failure to understand a 31,000+ page pile of gibberish.  I spent 3 years examining government accounts while serving in the Marine Corps, hold a degree in history from UCLA, and am halfway through my three years of legal “academic” hazing; I don’t say that to brag, but when a guy like me would rather eat the barrel of a shotgun than try to understand the tax code, how can the IRS expect compliance from average citizen lacking the benefit of any higher education? 

At the very least, the Federal government should ensure that it supplies us with free, friendly and knowledgeable guidance each year.  That’ll never happen, however, and anyone stupid enough to rely on an understandable and effective flat tax or VAT replacing the 8,000-lbs gorilla brooding in the corner needs a serious reality check. 

The most powerful (and most ignorant) voting block in our society, the lazy and the poor, absolutely loves the annual bonus (aka: Earned Income Tax Credit) the IRS bribes them with; their welfare/afdc/social robbery income can barely afford the 22″ SPINNAHZ on their deep rollers, and there’s no way they’ll oust the meal ticket that provides them with their annual trip to Vegas.  And without a filthy torch-and-pitchfork-weilding populist mob chanting for more more more, politicians have little incentive to make anything substantive happen.

But I digress.  AMT?  Someone email me and tell me how to care, because honestly I don’t anymore.