that's so funny. What makes that funny is it is almost word for word from the guy who does my taxes. He's saying this to me, my eyes glaze over, I say "how much do I owe, c'mon where do I sign, go home already".
The time you have to waste on preparing your taxes or keeping and organizing the necessary records for a preparer is like an additional tax. The amount of money wasted on tax planning and avoidance is extraordinary.
I got the book and read a bit of it and was not impressed because the entire success of this approach is based on an economic assumption that is tenuous at best. For example the author claims that about 25% of the price of everything we consume is embedded taxes. Yet in my gasoline example, an industry I'm familiar with, no where near that amount is embedded tax as oil price is set on a global basis and oil is at least 90% of the price of gasoline. Seneca Seneca
You inadvertently shot yourself in the foot with The example you have provided and proved that taxes are cooked into the price of goods, this example works against you, the reason there is not a 25% tax price embedded in the price of gas in the U.S. is because the U.S. subsidises oil companies, if you go to canada where they tax the shit out of oil companies you pay 1 dollar more per gallon, even though canada has all the oil, and they supply a large percentage of U.S. oil. If you go to Europe you pay 3 more dollars per gallon. Here is an example from Canada. 32% of the cost of gas in Canada is taxes, because the government in Canada soaks the oil companies. What You Pay at the Pump 2007 Canadian Average Pump Price Data Source: MJ Ervin & Associates Petro-Canada Refining & Marketing Profit Hereâs a breakdown of the factors that determine the price you pay at the pump. For more information about these factors, please visit our Pump Talk blog. Taxes Taxes are one of the largest components of Canadian retail pump prices. In 2007, Canadians paid an average of 32.5¢ tax on every litre of gasoline. That represents a little over $16 on a 50-litre fill. Taxes on gasoline vary by province, which often leads to regional differences in pump prices. On July 1, 2010, the governments in Ontario and British Columbia will harmonize the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) with the Federal Goods and Services Tax (PST) to create a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). For more information, visit the Canada Revenue Agency website. http://retail.petro-canada.ca/en/fuelsavings/2132.aspx