Once upon a time in a land not so far away, Americans grew up in a place where they had confidence their government was fiscally responsible. And in so believing, they were happy to do their patriotic duty and abide by paying their fair share of taxes. It was understood that the tax money would be appropriately spent on building and improving America’s infrastructure, fortifying its military defenses and paying the humble salaries of its elected officials and government paid works such as teaches, etc. But is that what is happening today? 

      So many of our aging Americans remember a time where it was a patriotic duty to pay taxes, but even those individuals are disillusioned or disheartened by where they see the money going. Many argue that taxing civilians is unconstitutional per the 5th amendment. Although there may be an argument for not paying your taxes, Uncle Sam can throw you in jail if you do not pay his pound of flesh. This article is not about the constitutionality of taxes, but rather the examples of how our tax dollars have been spent. The goal here is to show that however patriotic one may feel about paying taxes, the government still finds a way to squander our money. By understanding this, it may give the reader more principled conviction than just shielding their money from taxation. 

     Here are just 5 brilliant examples of “Outrageous Things Your Taxes Paid For” according to a Readers Digest article published July 29th, 2019.

           1. Social Media Likes! That’s right, officials in The State Department wanted to increase the number of likes and traffic to their Facebook pages and Twitter pages so they paid $630,000 in 2013 to beef up this number. You know, to artificially not organically make it look like people liked their page. The result was a less than 2% increase in visitors to their page. 

            2. Romance Novel Research…. Turns out that in 2010 The NEH (what, you never hear of the NEH?) Nation Endowment of the Humanities funded the Popular Romance Project. Its aim was to “explore the fascinating often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, songs and internet fanfictions.” What sounds more like an interim Liberal Arts college self-directed study course by a lonely early 20 something adult actually cost the tax payers nearly $1,000,000!

            3. Research on duck reproductive organs…. Oh boy! Looks like aliens and UFOs are not the only thing “ab-duck-ting” animals and violating them. It seems our government allowed for $385,000 of tax dollars to be spent to study the corkscrew like genitalia of the male duck. This research is thanks to the brilliant and inquisitive minds at Yale University biology department in 2005. 

           4. Predictable college drinking research…. This study costing over $5,000,000 found that Greek life organizations drank more than their non-Greek affiliated friends. NO “Schlitz” Sherlock!!! 

           5. Unused software…. We have all done it…. Purchased a thing for a few bucks tossed in closet, drawer or shelf and forgot it was there. Well, nearly $12,000,000 of our tax dollars had the same end when it had to do with IRS on their “software upgrade.” If only there was an organization to audit the IRS. 

      However ridiculous the five examples above may be, they still typify the gross misallocation of our tax dollars. Yet the government still continues to reach deeper and deeper into our pocket claiming they need more to operate as they can’t balance the budget. Now we know why. 

     Where we come in is the ability to educate our customers and clients on products that can be 100% protected from taxation on the gains. Most people don’t even know these products exist and are so excited to learn they too can take advantage of them. I always ask, if you earned 10% on your money but it was taxed, what’s it really returning? The answer is maybe 7-8%. But if you earned 10% on your money and it was not taxed, what then is it really worth and that reality is more like 12-13%. I will take the tax-free option if ya don’t mind. 

Link to Readers Digest article: "18 Outrageous Things Your Taxes Actually Paid For"

https://www.rd.com/list/wasteful-government-spending/