Unto Caesar

If you listened really hard, you might be able to hear the cries of the missing and the dead through the open window. It is season ably cool in the darkness, for this position of the planet in its orbit around the sun.

President Lincoln was shot on the day that the Earth presented this aspect to our star, and the Titanic went down with the stars looking just as they do today, and British troops walked into the Bergen-Belsen death camp where Ann Frank was murdered with horror in their eyes.

The last event is the only one within living memory, and anniversaries do not bring things closer, after all, and only the heavens maintain the semblance of continuity.

Baseball is back in Washington for the first time since 1971 , played at night under clear skies with the stars dimmed by artificial light. RFK Stadium was sold out, fans eager to see the refurbished stadium and the re-located team. The Nationals beat the Diamondbacks, and all was right in the world for that night under the unchanging stars.

With the evening activity, the city is going to be a mess in the morning. Normally Congress is in recess on Friday, so the Members can travel home to their districts. Consequently, the commute is the best of the week. But with the disruption in sleep patterns for the fifty-thousand odd baseball goers, there are likely to be cranky drivers and automotive mishaps which will change the landscape.

And there is that thing which happens under these stars each year, Caesar’s annual levy, when we render unto Washington that part of our treasure that is deemed to belong to the Government. It is the ritual of the filing of the 1040 tax form. There will be pandemonium at the Post Offices tonight, as the last-minute filers hurtle toward the mailboxes to get a postmark before midnight.

Of course, Caesar has had the money all along. Were it not for payroll withholding this system would never work. Imagine having to pay it all at once! Imagine the cheating that would go on, which of course is why the “tax gap” exists. Only the Corporations and the self employed have the chance to keep the full benefit of their labor, and estimate their payments quarterly.

The Government does not have the advantage of sitting in the payroll office, taking up to a third of the money before it is disbursed. And with that freedom of action, some of the discretionary funds are converted into political donations, direct personal payments to Caesar, and the consequent establishment of a bewildering thicket of loop-holes and tax havens not available to the working stiff.

It is bizarre. I read about a stiff not much different than me, whose company tanked like Enron did. he was forced to exercise his stock options, which had a tax basis of around a million dollars. By the time he got them to market, they were worth just about what Enron stock was at the end.

He got about $5,000 out of his options, and the IRS says he owes them $400,000. It is crazy, but that is the law, and it must be paid in full. 

Caesar has being on a spending binge of late, and a little short in the wallet. As a result, the IRS has been huffing and puffing about the taxes that were not paid on the money they could not control.

The Senate was working yesterday, the stars aligning nicely, and IRS Commissioner Mark Everson told them that the complexity in the tax code and cheating by the self-employed contributed to a shortfall in collections of between $312 billion and $353 billion. That is in 2001 dollars, by the way, before the latest stealth de-valuation of the currency, so we are talking about real money here.

Almost enough money to have a free Department of Defense, or a Department of Health and Human Services.

Caesar was naturally displeased to hear the news, though generally encouraged that more ruthless enforcement was closing some of the gap, even more intrusive means would, of course, be necessary to ensure compliance with a code so complex that the IRS cannot understand it either.

What is necessary, of course, is to simplify the system. I am required to utilize a computer program to file the thick packet of forms that Caesar demands, and I have not idea if it is actually correct.

I do know that the number add up, all my income is accounted for, and the forms look neat. That is the most important part of the process, as I understand it.

I was worried about the taxes this year. Being retired from the military and becoming a civilian for the first time this late in life is a bit unnerving. I punched in numbers to the computer, noting what Caesar had already taken, and then gulped at the result and wrote out another check to the IRS, and then one to the Deputy Caesar who lives in Richmond .

Thank goodness for the withholding tax! If I had to write a check for the whole amount I owe on the day when the stars align just this way, I might complain about how Caesar spends it. The amount is quite breathtaking, sufficient to put a down payment on a house.

Caesar is a bit short on cash because of our need to defend ourselves more vigorously at home and abroad. Before knocking off for the weekend, the Senate Intelligence Committee summoned the nominee to be John Negroponte’s Deputy to testify before them.

Mike Hayden wore his three-star suit for the occasion, which was largely ritual, since the heavens indicate that confirmation for the new Director and his Deputy are assured.

Mike put on a suitably ruthless face for the proceedings, just like the IRS Commissioner.

He said that the three-letter agencies needed to push “right up to that line” to gather information, including that on American civilians. He said he would obey the privacy laws, since the law and the Constitution are important, and possibly relevant documents.

Mike has been director of the National Security Agency for six years, the period when he said that NSA was “going deaf.”

He also was the most active in campaigning for this new job. In his opening statement, he said that the agencies needed to be aggressive in employing their powers, and that too much emphasis had been placed on consensus in the Intelligence Community.

He said that consensus is rarely bold, and many times it’s just wrong. I applaud the sentiment, and have felt that someone with some real understanding should just make a decision to knock some heads together and move forward. I applaud the bold talk.

My reservation is that it is Mike Hayden’s agency that has been stripped by Congress of some acquisition authority, failed to adequately program for its payroll obligations to Caesar and its workforce, and been the most relentlessly pig-headed in the consensus process.

Well, the stars are aligned for change, the taxes are paid, and Caesar has cashed my checks.

Let the games begin. I believe I will pick up a loaf of bread to go with the circus.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com