[The Guardian] More than $300,000
Last week, there was the news that Stephen Moore, the author of “Trumponomics” and President Trump’s nominee for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, was being pursued by the IRS for more than $75,000 in back taxes from 2014. (Moore has said that it’s not true that he owes the IRS that amount.) And, according to records obtained by The Guardian, Moore was held in contempt of court in 2012 for failing to pay more than $300,000 in spousal support, child support and other money owed to his ex-wife in their divorce settlement. (Moore declined to comment on the report to the news outlet.)
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[The Atlantic] The tax-collection system as we know it is the outcome of three forces: corporate lobbying, a stubborn resistance to borrowing good ideas from other Western nations, and the Republican Party’s decades-long campaign against taxation itself.
In the Netherlands, the procedure is simple. First, you look over the form the government sends you with your taxes already calculated, and you check it. Second, you sign it and send it back. Third—well, there is no third. That’s the entire process. Dutch citizens can file their taxes in minutes.
This is the case in country after country. In Japan, Sweden, Estonia, and Great Britain, people don’t have to file their taxes. They are spared the high-stress homework assignment that Americans face every year. Citizens of these countries do get the opportunity to check the government’s arithmetic if they like, but in most cases, taxpayers seem to think the calculations are reasonable…
Nothing is keeping the United States from copying these countries. The article is entertaining. See:
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–> Now it’s Herman Cain for Federal Reserve. Donald cannot deal with (a) a virtuous man (b) an honest man (c) a mature man (d) a competent man. Mariner wonders why. . .
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The Quiz
There was an erroneous question that slipped through as mariner was editing questions. It was the question about the wings of a dove and asked a bonus question which should not have been there.
Mariner hopes readers toyed with it a bit. Everyone has tidbits of memory that hang with them for their entire lives. Problem is, it’s not a complete set of information – a line here, a first name there, perhaps a vision of a scene but which movie?
Yes, ten planets. If the reader did not violate the rule about using search engines, they would not know that astronomers have changed their tune about Pluto and other stable objects because of the role they play in balancing the Solar System in general. By the way, the tenth planet is named ‘Far Out’ because it really, really is far out.
Ancient Mariner