To write calmly about Tax Return time - it’s a tough assignment. To start with, why is it so loudly called and written in big letters "tax return" even if you have to pay additional taxes? Or, if this really is a tax return to you, why there are overpaid taxes in the first place? Those questions aside, let’s go for the main one, why Tax Return event is so humiliating?

You may say, with some resignation likely, that Tax Return is compli- cated. Very complicated. You may say, along those lines, that Tax Return is intentionally complicated as a job security for an army of "tax advisers". I would say that the tax advisers are just a side effect. And I would say that Tax Return is intentionally complicated to inflict the notion of state invulnerability and power over an individual, a citizen. More precisely, it is to show how small and insignificant you are. Now, don’t get me wrong, with so many of us I recognize that state is an inescapable social structure and that citizen’s obedience is a neces- sity. What I’m complaining, however, are some of the government means of the obedience "education". And let me tell you, some state governments (I’ve changed five of them so far) are less civil then the federal government.

My tax returns are arguably the simplest: I’m retired, I don’t trade commodities, my pension and annuity distributions are well defined, I report standard deductions only. My 2013 federal tax return was on 3 pages of 2 letter size sheets, but my MI state tax return was on 11 pages of 6 sheets. On those pages, some ID type data are repeated over and over:

Here is an example, from MI tax form, which might lead you to a conclusion that you’ve been treated like an idiot:

line 35. Subtract line 34 from line 13

line 36. Enter amount from line 35

line 37. Percentage from Table A that applies to the amount on line 33

line 38. Multiply line 36 by line 37

Suggestion: replace the three lines 36-38 with a single line:

replacement line: Multiply line 35 by the percentage from Table A that