Honolulu Lite
Forget about the Ides of March. What you really have to beware of are the Ides of April. As in, "Ide's better be getting my taxes done." The dreaded Ides
of April are upon usActually, if you've waited until now to even start thinking about doing your taxes, then you're dead meat. You think winter days are short? The days between now and April 15 shrink at an alarming rate. The closer Tax Filing Day comes, the shorter the days get, until April 14, which will run about 23 minutes. You aren't going to make it. Might as well go down to the federal building and get that dreaded extension form. You promise yourself each year that this will be the last time you file for an extension. But here you are again. Why? It's just as hard getting all your tax stuff together in May as it is in January. So why do so many people procrastinate, especially people who know they will be getting a refund?
I have a couple of theories. The first is that many of us suffer from Traumatic Math Test Stress Syndrome. Face it, Internal Revenue Service filing forms are nothing but elaborate mathematics tests. And we all hate math tests. We hated them in high school and college and looked forward to the day when we never would have to take another one. Now we are grownups and should be free from having to take such tests. Yet each year, the government throws a nationwide pop math quiz. It's even worse than the old college and high-school math tests because you can't stay home pretending you're sick. If you don't take this test, you go to jail. If you do take the test and screw up the answers, you get audited. And every mistake costs you more money.
We are a country of math haters. Having to fill out complicated tax forms, or paying someone else to do it for us, throws us into retroactive fits of anxiety.
My second theory on why we delay filing our taxes is that, when it comes to our personal finances, we live the entire year in the Land of Self-Delusion. Most of us are employees who have large chunks of our paychecks extracted before we ever get to touch them. The feds take several large bites. Then the state. Then unions and charities. We take what's left and try not to think about what the amount started out to be. And we're pretty good at it. Then comes tax time. And we are FORCED to look at how much moola coola has been picked from our pockets. It's there in black and white. When you see it all at once in one place, well ... it's staggering. It makes one gasp. It makes one drink. It makes one think, hey, I don't care how big of a tax rebate Bill Gates gets, just give me some of MY money back!
Considering how many people currently are undergoing this annual sticker shock, maybe it isn't the perfect time for public teachers and professors to be talking about striking in order to get even more of our money. We'll be a lot more agreeable in a few months when the math test is over and we are happily living again in the Land of Delusion.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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