Benjamin Franklin once remarked, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.”  (The Lamb would add one more certainty — Michigan football will have a weak secondary every season).  We all hate paying taxes, though we realize that it’s a necessary part of life — sort of like having to spit out the seeds when you eat watermelon.

Now along comes Associated Tax Relief.  You may have seen their ads blaring at you on TV.  The company claims to “end your IRS headaches if you qualify.”  On their website, the company boasts of the huge savings provided to some of its clients.  For example, “‘Robert R’ owed $114,625, but settled for $20,688.  Wow!  Great for “Robert R.”  But how about for you?

You get to pay all the taxes that you owe, and your neighbor gets to take the money he owes the government and buy a big-screen television or maybe a speedboat.  The nearly $100,000 that Robert didn’t pay has to come from somewhere.  And that place is your wallet. 

According to Associated’s website, the Robert R situation and others like his are “not necessarily representative of all those who have used our services.”  Thank goodness for that.  Why should other taxpayers subsidize those that don’t pay their bills?  People like “Paula A.”  Paula owed $36,970.20 but, according to Associated Tax Relief, settled for $1,520, barely 4 cents on the dollar.

These are very different situations from those of people who negotiate with credit card companies for lower balances or installment payment plans.  Those are agreements made between two private parties.  And, except for shareholders and bondholders of these credit card companies who may be impacted by these arrangements, Ma and Pa Taxpayer are not forced to subsidize the arrangement.

You may or may not agree with our current tax structure in which, according to an op-ed piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal:

According to the CBO, those who made less than $44,300 in 2001 — 60% of the country — paid a paltry 3.3% of all income taxes. By 2005, almost all of them were excused from paying any income tax. They paid less than 1% of the income tax burden. Their share shrank even when taking into account the payroll tax. In 2001, the bottom 60% paid 16.3% of all taxes; by 2005 their share was down to 14.3%. All the while, this large group of voters made 25.8% of the nation’s income.

When you make almost 26% of the income and you pay only 0.6% of the income tax, that’s a good deal, courtesy of those who do pay income taxes. For the bottom 40%, the redistribution deal is even better. In 2001, these 43 million Americans, who earn less than $30,500, made 13.5% of the nation’s income but paid no income tax. Instead, they received checks from their taxpaying neighbors worth $16.3 billion. By 2005, those checks totaled $33.3 billion.

However skewed the current tax system may be, each citizen is expected to pay his legally legislated share — no more and no less.  When citizens try to escape this obligation, with the help of outfits like Associated Tax Relief, they are not simply cheating some amorphous entity (the IRS), they are effectively taking money from those that have paid their share.

You likely just went through the joy of filing your tax returns and maybe wrote out a sociable-sized check to Uncle Sam.  If so, just try to watch the following video without getting angry: