Ouch ouch ouch

A month or so ago, my husband and I gave blood. Last week, we did it again.

The first time, we went to a Red Cross bloodmobile in the post office parking lot, and, as thank-yous, received $5 coupons to Daphne’s Greek Café.

The second time, we showed up at our accountant’s office hauling records and receipts that we’d labored over for several weekends. We got a bill as a thank-you. (Actually, we like our accountant, whose name is Dave and who has a great sense of humor.)

Sometimes I wonder whether the federal and state officials who make these rules are actually human. Note to IRS: I am not attacking your auditors. They’re just doing their jobs. So please leave me alone.

These folks draw up rules that simply make life miserable for most of us at very little benefit to the government. Example: we learned that if our 19-year-old son receives more than $900 in unearned income on his college savings, he has to pay the same tax rate that we do. This means that he has to file a complicated return, at considerable expense – you think a 19-year-old can figure this stuff out himself? – rather than a simplified form. At most, his unearned income might exceed that amount by a few hundred dollars. We’ll pay more for extra accounting time than we will in extra taxes.

I’m sure many of you can supply equally outrageous examples. Actually, so could I, but I don’t want to belabor the point.

Most of us don’t mind paying our fair share. What we do mind are excessively tangled and often incomprehensible regulations that force us – and our accountants – to waste hours just to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.

While I’m ranting, don’t get me started on the idiots in the California Legislature who want to stick residents with huge increases in our already large car registration fees, sales taxes, and everything else they can think of. These same legislators get free cars that we pay for, maintain and fuel. Meanwhile senior citizens who’ve lost half their savings in the stock market will be selling or donating their RVs to charity because they can’t afford hundreds of additional dollars in fees.

I’m grateful for the local radio deejays whose protest rally against these increases drew 8,000 angry taxpayers. And that was just the beginning of their campaign.

How’re things where you live? Are legislators any more sensible in other states and countries?

Thank goodness love is still free and romance novels are still a bargain. I’ll go read one right now and improve my mood.