California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

Americans are concluding another tax year by meeting today’s tax deadline. The seemingly
tenuous task of tax preparation has been handed down over history.

Taxes have been with mankind since the dawn of civilization. Sumerians left behind clay
tablets recording taxes. In fact one reads, you can have a lord, you can have a king, but the
man to fear is the tax collector. Egyptian hieroglyphics depict ancient tax agents getting tough
on delinquent taxpayers. Many historians argue that the Romans propelled their civilization to
greatness through a tax system.  And the Rosetta stone was a document granting tax immunity
to priests.Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry in Great Britain protesting taxes. 
And perhaps the most famous tax action of all, the American colonies launched a revolution
against Britain’s King George protesting sugar, tea and stamp taxes thereby giving birth to the
United States.America’s forefathers complained then as we do now that taxes burden consumers
disproportionately and history has shown that government bureaucracies expand in order to collect
the needed revenue.

Today, the US tax code and regulations are now over 17,000 pages in length.  Americans
collectively spend $5.4 billion hours each year preparing their taxes.  Taxes are now so
complicated that more than 57 million Americans feel it necessary to use a tax preparer. 
In all, the Internal Revenue Service employs more than 113,000 and sends out nearly 8 billion
pages of forms each year. The old adage that you can count on three things in life is no more
evident than they are today – birth, death and paying taxes.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.

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