Lincoln and Taxes

In honor of one of our great American heroes. Here is a paraphrasing of the Gettysburg Address in dealing with taxation.

This was written years ago by Donna Kanagy a family friend.

Four score and fifteen years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this nation a tax, conceived in desperation and dedicated to the proposition that all are fair game.

Now we are engaged in a great mass of calculations, testing whether that taxpayer or any taxpayer so confused and so "impoverished" can long endure.

We are met on Form 1040.

We have come to dedicate a large portion of our income to a final resting place with those men who spent theirs that they may spend our money.

It is altogether anguish and torture that we should do this. But in this sense we cannot evade ... we cannot cheat ... we cannot underestimate this tax.

The collectors, clever and shy, who computed here, have gone far beyond our power to add or subtract.

Our creditors will little note or long remember what we pay here, but the Bureau of Internal Revenue can never forget what we report here. It is for us, the taxpayers, rather to be devoted here to the tax return which the government has thus far so nobly spent.

It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that with these vanishing dollars we take increased devotion to the remaining few; that we highly resolve that the next year will not find us in a higher income tax bracket.

That this taxpayer, underpaid, shall figure out more deductions; and that taxation of the people, by the Congress, for the government shall not cause solvency to perish.