I Don’t Want To Pay For Concentration Camps
Paying taxes is never fun, but it felt especially bleak this year
Tax Day sucks.
Even in the best-case scenario — receiving a massive return — filing your taxes is a punishing endeavor. First, you gather all your paperwork. Then you log on to one of the two extortion sites tax preparation sites and get ready to be confused over the next hour (or more). Once you’ve done all the work (and navigated through roughly two dozen pop-up ads attempting to get money out of you), you’re blessed by the opportunity to provide the site with even more money for the privilege of having the government give a little cash back. Or, in my case, as a freelance writer/editor, you write a big fat check for the government to spend however they see fit. It sucks.
The annual rite of passage is often a teenager's first indication that adulthood is more than just the ability to drink legally and stay out as late as you want; it also means being forced to do mind-numbing tasks pretty regularly. Eventually, you get used to it, but forever after April 15 will be tattooed into your brain as “a bad day.”
This is a long preamble to say that in my 25+ years of filing my taxes, I’ve never been more conflicted over doing so. The conflict wasn’t about wanting to keep my bank account robust (or more accurately, slightly less pitiful), but about the ethical question repeating in my mind — is it moral to give money to the Trump Administration?