Government Employees Do NOT Pay Taxes

I have a confession I must share with you, dear reader. I was contemplating becoming an ordained minister.

I’m serious; an ordained minister.

This, in spite of my profound love for casual sex, intoxicating substances, and dirty language. Hell, I was even willing to give up my atheism if that was what it took.

For, where before I was lost in the darkness, I thought I had been shown a great light, a new golden path lined with the liberating promise of greater fulfillment; a chance to be born again a free man.

What was this light, this path of promise, this chance to be born again? Why would I possibly want to become a minister?

Cue the music!

Tax-exemption!

Alas, it turns out the guy who called the radio station had led me astray. He was only half right when he told me ministers were exempt from taxes.

Ordained ministers can apply to be exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes by filing a form 4029, but with God as my witness, income taxes would still apply. Caesar would still be rendering something from flesh whether I was a man of God or not.

But then, Grinch style, I got an idea.

An awful idea. A wonderful, awful idea.

What if I was the Caesar himself? Would I still have to tax myself?

And then the concept hit me with full-force: government employees do not pay taxes!

Now, you might being saying to yourself in the style of that scene from Airplane, “Joey”: what in the hell are you blathering about?

Of course government employees pay taxes!

Well sure, even federal government employees go through the motions of paying taxes. They are given a salary for their work from which payroll taxes are taken out and on which they are expected to pay income taxes.

So yes, I admit it. Our dear public servants go through this process like every other flag-waving, red, white, and blue blooded American. They do their duty. They render unto Caesar.

But let me ask you a simple question, dear reader: where does the money for paying our public servants’ salaries come from in the first place?

Taxation.

So why go through the process in the first place? If government workers are paid with tax money, what’s the point of them putting back into the pool from which they initially draw? Why the charade? Why not just give them their cut of the spoils? Why not make this plain as day?

Could it be that some taxpayers are more equal than others and that this must be obscured at all costs, especially that of actual tax payers?

So there you have it. If you technically don’t want to pay taxes, work for the government.

And if you do, may God forgive you, even though you can no longer say you know not what you do.