The Horrid Social & Cultural Consequences of Taxation

Today is Tax Day in America. When April 15th happens to fall on a weekend, the IRS "generously" permits us to extend the filing ritual until the following Monday. But since Monday was a holiday in the District of Columbia known as (without irony) Emancipation Day, we all enjoyed an extra bonus day to comply. And for the most part, comply we do: the voluntary compliance rate, defined by the IRS as taxes timely paid as a percentage of taxes owed in aggregate, is nearly 82%. Compare this with Italy, for example, where tax evasion is a national pastime. For a nation born out of tax resistance, we Americans tend to grumble but not revolt.