Statist Jock Itch

The United Statists of America opened up a Pandora’s treasure chest exactly 101 years ago today on February 3, 1913, when the odious 16^th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified finally allowing the government trolls to levy taxes on the income of individuals living in the former land of the free.

Ever since that fateful day more than a century ago all the greedy statists at the federal, state and local levels of government have been literally itching to grab as much loot as they can from every single voluntary transaction between individuals whether large or small.

I liken them to the ugly, stinking, hairy little trolls who reside under bridges and come out with teeth bared, waiving, screaming and shrilly demanding of hapless passersby to show them the money in their pockets, turn it over and give it up.

Not only is everyone expected to fork over a substantial share of their hard earned income to these armed gangs of extortionist trolls, in addition we must all suffer the humiliating indignity of filing a detailed report to the beasts every year signed under penalty of perjury specifying the exact amount and origin of every penny.

This is one of the worst things that have ever happened to the citizens of America in the entire history of the United States. If the founding fathers of our nation were alive today they’d all be sickened to the core over this travesty which they surely never intended when they rebelled against the king of England, fought the Revolutionary War and ultimately ratified the Constitution.

The very idea of a government tax on individual incomes was an unconstitutional anathema before 1913. It took an amendment to the Constitution in order to bring about this horrible plague upon the populace. And that was finally achieved by the statists only because they promised that such a tax would remain trifling and limited solely to the very highest earners and most wealthy citizens among the people.

Today the national income tax cancer has metastasized throughout the whole body of the republic to such an extent that there is no possibility of escaping the sticky tentacles of the statist government trolls who now reside under bridges everywhere; Washington D.C., and every state, city, town and tiny municipality across the land.

Witness, for just one example, the fact that all the football players, coaches, and staff of both the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks, who faced off today in the Super Bowl game at MetLife Stadium in the state of in New Jersey will be required by the tax trolls to fork over a special “jock tax” levied on athletes who earn money during visits the Garden State.

There’s no escaping it. It’s going on in just about every venue in the country where professional sports is played. The statist trolls in these places have been itching for a long time to impose these jock taxes and now it’s a reality.

The state of California devised the tax on out-of-state players when Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls played the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals. Later, the State of Illinois enacted its own jock tax on Lakers players, calling it “Michael Jordan’s Revenge.”

Now all the professional sports franchises must provide their players and other team employees with W2 forms reflecting income, and calculating the taxes owed to each state in which they have competed during the year. It’s an administrative nightmare for the taxpayers and a bonanza for the legions of government trolls, tax lawyers and accountants.

Seahawks and Broncos players visiting New Jersey for the Super Bowl today are taxed at a rate of 8.97% on earnings earned each day they’re in the state. The loot will be considerable as each player on the winning team will be entitled to a bonus of $92,000, while the losing team’s players get $46,000. Some of the higher paid athletes will be dunned as much as $60,000 in taxes for their weeklong stay in New Jersey.

That means players, coaches, trainers, as well as the officiating crews who referee the contest, will be shaken down by the income tax trolls. Even the Super Bowl rings, awarded to the participants, and valued at between $20,000 and $25,000 each, are considered by the grasping statists as a taxable fringe benefit.

The trolls, who put the Italian mafia to shame with their tactics, don’t leave a single stone unturned when it comes to collecting their ill-gotten and extorted loot.

Those who perhaps will suffer the most by this legitimized thieving scheme will be the assistant coaches and trainers who earn the small money but will still have to hire tax accounts to sort out their own individual jock tax liability. “Everyone who travels with the team gets taxed, and they’re the ones who really get hurt,” explains Sean Packard, tax director at Interpublic Group’s (IPG) Octagon Financial Services.  

Look for the consequences of this crippling disease to spread soon to the internet and every voluntary financial transaction between innocent consenting individuals doing business everywhere. 

The government tax trolls are itching for and are going to get their cut by hook or crook.

This is the inevitable result of American government statist jock itch.