Each year at tax time, without
fail, some news story will rise to the top of all others. Invariably that story will focus on the
person who feels overburdened; to make that point, they wind up paying their
assessment in pennies.
Equally as entertaining are those
non-tax time stories about local municipalities who really, really need the
money and the taxee doesn’t. So the
taxee gets creative by wheeling a wheel barrow into the tax assessor’s office,
closely followed by the eager media.
Camera flashes and guffaws from
onlookers fill the television. A
startled, bespectacled clerk in a flowered nylon dress completes this scene,
with the narrating news-readers smiling about how all that loose change will occupy
the valuable civil servant time.
People like me cheer those rebels
of local government because of the creativity and arrogance. Because the money turned over is legal
tender, it must be accepted. Pesos and
Euros are not adequate.
Here is where today’s story
begins.
I am a regular lottery
player. The Powerball and Megamillions
are two games that eagerly await my money each week. Now some readers are laughing at me because
what I am doing is paying a “voluntary” tax.
This cash is nothing more than a
vehicle to fill the state and local government coffers with money from idiots
like me, gleefully sauntering into my favorite lottery-selling store, and
plunking down a couple of bucks.
I don’t complain, carp, tear up,
or whine; I just hand over the money with a smile. And each week I discover I didn’t win,
again. And again I go out to pay more
voluntary tax for the next drawing.
But today is different. This next Powerball drawing, for August 23rd,
has an estimated jackpot, for one winner, of $650,000,000.
Of course, we must pay taxes on
the winnings. Federal tax alone is
roughly $247,000,000! That’s more money
than I spend on cat litter each year.
But I digress.
To sum this up, we pay a
voluntary tax to buy a ticket, then we must pay a tax if we win. No wonder people pay their taxes in nickels.
In any case, this is about the
time when all those logical poor folks enthusiastically give people like me
their personal sage advice.
They are quick to point out how
my chances of getting struck by lightning are 12 times that of winning the
lottery. Or, to put is more succinctly,
I could outrun Seabiscuit for the Triple Crown.
Still, to validate my own modest
spending on entertainment, I simply look at my movie watching habits.
I subscribe to a mail-order movie
service. I spend $11 per month to get
movies sent to my door from a place we’ll refer to as Getflix, whose name I
cleverly hid.
Over the years, my sainted wife
and I have seen over three hundred Getflix movies and have only genuinely
enjoyed perhaps eight.
Those are disappointments to me,
but just as with the lottery numbers, I get to select what I see, and the
numbers that I play. If I am
disappointed, it’s my own fault.
But if I do win, I will arrive at
Powerball Headquarters with a trailer to pick up my winnings I would like to
receive in dollar bills. Pity the bank.
So there you have it. If you’re a lottery player and actually do
win the jackpot, remember all those naysayers and lighting statistic
enthusiasts.
And say. “Hey,” for me.
