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Life of a teen-age taxpayer: Kyle Williams begrudges feds hitting up youth for cash
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Saturday, April 12, 2003 | Kyle Williams

Posted on 04/12/2003 2:25:18 AM PDT by JohnHuang2

The 15th is an important day for me this year. My first book will be shipped to those who bought it on WorldNetDaily, and the 15th is also tax day, a deadline for the first year I have to pay taxes.

Wait a minute! I'm only 14; I'm underage. I don't have to pay taxes, right? Au contraire, my friend. Once again, the United States government is penalizing American citizens that choose to be productive.

To those who read my column and pay taxes, this is nothing new. However, it's new to me. When I heard that I earned enough last year to pay taxes, my first reaction was outrage. First, I'm paying so little in taxes, compared to my parents for instance, that it wouldn't even make a small scratch in the multi-trillion dollar federal budget.

Second, in addition to federal and state income taxes, I'll be pouring money into a Social Security fund. A Social Security fund that I have no chance at getting. Aware and young taxpayers have accepted the fact that they will have no Social Security pension when they retire.

Lastly, I am 14 years old. Memo to government: That's a whole four years under 18. What happens when you turn 18? Hopefully you register to vote, but primarily, you have the right to vote at that age. So, what exactly does that mean? It means that I am a minor, too young to vote, and I must pay federal and state income taxes to a government that does not represent me.

A few hundred years ago, some angry men had a party of some sorts and threw tea into the Boston Harbor. Those patriots called it "taxation without representation."

In the "Great Epochs in American History, Vol. 3," concerning the Stamp Act and its repeal, William E. H. Lechy wrote, "The doctrine that taxation and representation are in free nations inseparably connected, that constitutional government is closely connected with the rights of property, and that no people can be legitimately taxed except by themselves or their representatives, lay at the very root of the English conception of political liberty."

Taxation without representation was a key part of the American Revolution. It is interesting to me now that I am facing the same thing 250 years later (though not to the same degree).

This is not an isolated problem. It's something that teens around America submit to without thinking. A high-school student becomes productive by landing a part-time job and is penalized when he hits that threshold of being too productive.

So, what do we do about it? Should we grant voting privileges to all those who pay taxes? This seems fair, but not responsible considering the current state of America's youth. How about barring all taxes for those under 18? This also sounds fair, but many fear that parents would funnel their assets through their children, thus avoiding high taxes.

Look at it any way you wish, but this is a problem with no clear-cut solution.

Granted, when comparing it with the real problems of the day, this tax problem won't see a ray of light – and there's nothing wrong with that. For me, it is a personal (and now financial) connection to the way things were when this great nation was founded and to the way things are now.

It is ironic that the financial assets gained through this breach of liberty will be used to fund a power-grabbing United Nations through our unconstitutional treaty, fund an unconstitutional Department of Education, fund an unconstitutional welfare program, support the insane things coming out of Congress, and will fund a variety of other "useful" federal programs.

I'm about to go write a check out to the United States Treasury. Happy Tax Day.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Saturday, April 12, 2003

Quote of the Day by umgud

1 posted on 04/12/2003 2:25:18 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
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2 posted on 04/12/2003 2:26:12 AM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: JohnHuang2
The kid should start working for reform. If he's paying taxes, he's got a say whether he can vote or not.

My old man worked for IRS and he made damn sure I filed for my first real summer job when I was 14. The company had been withholding and Pa figured the IRS was holding about $50 of mine and he thought I should have it.

1958.

3 posted on 04/12/2003 3:06:20 AM PDT by metesky (My retirement fund is holding steady @ $.05 a can)
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To: JohnHuang2
What do you get in return for your tax dollars?

Issue 101

How is it that people and society in general have prospered and increased their well being for decades yet the politicians and bureaucrats say we must have another 3,000 laws and regulations each year on top of the 100,000+ laws already on the books... That without them people and society face "disaster". People and society have done quite well without next year's 3,000 new federal laws and regulations. Why all of a sudden can people and society not continue to do quite well without them? The fact is, they'd be better off without 99% of them.

So who really benefits from 3,000 new laws and regulations each year? -- not to mention state laws and regulations. Politicians and bureaucrats. They create boogieman problems and with a complicit media towing their boogieman problems cast a net of false fear and unwarranted despair in people.

Quite literally, they create problems where none exist. They're sick in that they chose to frighten people and foist false despair on them and do that to collect their unearned paychecks. Their job security is predicated on deceiving as many people as possible.

Fully integrated honesty is key. That we have the government we have that has gone so far off course from the government the founders created is a product of irrationality and dishonesty. Changing the laws via the "system" is almost completely useless. Politicians create dozens of unconstitutional laws before even considering repealing just one unconstitutional law. That is not a system -- it's a quagmire of deception, irrationality, fraud and abuse.

Voting for the lesser of evils always begets evil. How can so many people thinking they're right be so wrong?

Wake up! Politics is not the solution -- politics is the problem.

Who are the producers?
Who are the parasites?
Praise the value producers --
Ostracizing the parasitical value destroyers.

4 posted on 04/12/2003 3:55:40 AM PDT by Zon
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To: JohnHuang2
"The doctrine that taxation and representation are in free nations inseparably connected, that constitutional government is closely connected with the rights of property, and that no people can be legitimately taxed except by themselves or their representatives, lay at the very root of the English conception of political liberty."

Collecting welfare benefits should mean you lose your right to vote. It's absurd we allow those who are completely unproductive to decide anything ---only taxpayers should have a say in how their confiscated money is spent.

5 posted on 04/12/2003 8:24:18 AM PDT by FITZ
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To: JohnHuang2
If the pictures on the WND website are of Kyle at 12 and Kyle at 14, it looks like he's bulking up a bit.
6 posted on 04/12/2003 8:41:57 AM PDT by HIDEK6
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