There are excise taxes, federal, state and local income taxes, sales taxes, use taxes, real property taxes, personal property taxes, intangible property taxes, consumption taxes, accumulation taxes, depletion taxes, social security taxes, medicare taxes, payroll taxes, succession taxes, service taxes, specific industry taxes, gift taxes, etc., etc. It is absolutely incredible! Every section of government, on every level, have their hand in our pockets. Deep in our pockets.

Consider that the average family pays 50% of it's gross earnings in taxes. That's correct. Fifty cents of every dollar earned by the average family goes to taxes. The most common scenario - you go to work to earn your pay. First they take out payroll taxes. Then that same gross (that's right essentially taxing the income you already just paid in payroll taxes) is subject to income taxation on a federal, state and local level. With what you have left over you can go out and buy things. The cost of many of these things already have taxes built into them such as excise taxes. In addition to that we pay sales tax on these goods when we buy them. Then as we use them through our lives we pay property taxes on them just to own them. If we give them away we have to pay a gift tax. And if we actually still own them when we die the government takes a huge chunk more as a succession (or inheritance) tax. It really is true that the only reason they don't tax the air that you breathe is because they haven't figured out how - yet.

And for businesses, everyday is "open field" day. The tax burden on businesses is also formidable. Not only do all the above taxes also apply to businesses but also an extra added feature called double taxation. Many businesses have to pay the full spectrum of taxes on the entity level and then the owners or stockholders get to pay a second set of taxes on the same already taxed income.

Perhaps if we felt our money was being spent wisely it wouldn't hurt so much. But I'm sure we all believe that if it was spent more wisely it wouldn't cost so much. Anyway........ I didn't mean to go off on a philosophical or apolitical tangent. We can sit down and discuss such things over dinner and drinks sometime. But the bottom line is;

It is essential that you do not take a passive position on this. You must take an aggressive approach to manage this incredible burden that has been placed upon you in order to pay the absolutely lowest taxes allowed by law. This is not a simple task. All things are not equal. This is part of what we do. It's our job and we're good at it! You should have us doing this for you.

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