Can't tax this

I spent quite a bit of time last evening thinking of an appropriate photo to post for Income Tax Day here in the U.S. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the yearly ritual (either you’re reading this from outside the U.S. or you decided to quit paying income tax twenty years ago), common ordinary citizens untrained in the intricacies of law or accounting are required to navigate through the U.S. Income Tax Code, a volume of laws, regulations and rules several feet in thickness created by lawyers and lifetime bureaucrats, and apply those rules that are pertinent to their situation (income level, family size and age, participating or non-participating business, investment and/or rental income, found money in the sofa cushions, NCAA pool winnings, etc.), report it all to the government, who already knows all this information about you anyway but are just testing your honesty, calculate your tax liability and, based on money withheld from your paychecks over the course of the past year, determine whether you finished in the plus or minus column.

I considered posting my Spring Meme Flower with most of the petals plucked off (a metaphorical depiction of my take on the tax code), but that required way too much time in PhotoShop.

Instead, I decided to post the above photo, taken as day broke east of Bloomington, Illinois last weekend. It’s also metaphorical. It’s a new day, with new opportunities, and the road is there waiting for you to do some exploring.

And unless you find some money along the way, the U.S. government can’t tax that.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.