Tax Evasion Threatens Our National Security

Tax Evasion is Cheating and a Crime!

According to the IRS, in 2006 (the most recent year studied) individuals and businesses underpaid their taxes by $450 billion. Whether the tax evader is a huge multi-national corporation, an individual billionaire like Leona Helmsley, or you and I, tax evasion is a crime which weakens our country.


In that year, US corporations, small businesses, and individuals failed to pay 17% of the tax owed and that amounted to 2.7 trillion dollars.


After enforcement efforts and IRS audits, the nonpayments shrank to 14%  - leaving the final amount at $385 billion.


$385 billion is significantly more than $248 billion budget deficit for that year. If American corporations, businesses, and. citizens had paid the taxes they owed, our government would have had a surplus in 2006.


More disconcerting is the fact that these statistics were similar to those of 2001, the last prior year the IRS had examined tax crime.


The sad fact is that if we Americans had  paid the federal taxes we owe in exchange for the  benefit of being citizens, our country would have had a surplus in 2006 rather than a $248 billion deficit!


We can all improvise reasons for not paying the taxes we owe, but the bottom line is we are trying to get a free ride. We we enjoy the benefits of being a citizen, but we do not want to pay the cost of those benefits.


It's time we Americans "man up" and pay what we owe..If terrorists stole $285 billion from the United States, we would want to lock them up in Guantanamo indefinitely; perhaps it's time we hold our corporations, businesses, and individuals accountable for tax crimes.


Greed being a a basic inclination, most of us would like to avoid paying our taxes, but we continue to pay because we realize that the benefits of our citizenship need to be financed. Unfortunately, greed appears to influence many of our fellow citizens who choose to break the law.


No matter how these cheating corporations, businesses, and individuals rationalize their cheating, they are stealing from the rest of us and threatening the welfare of our country.


(IRS statistics as reported in The Toledo Blade, 1/7/2012)