Cheap Trick – "Taxman, Mr. Thief" (1977)

You work hard, you make money . . .

Now the taxman is out to get you

Have you filed your 2021 tax return yet?

If not, you are f*cked six ways from Sunday, buddy!

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Actually, things aren’t that bad for you procrastinators . . . as least not yet.

While today used to be the deadline for filing your federal tax return with the IRS, you now have until Monday, April 18, to git ’er done.

(Almost!)

You can thank the District of Columbia for those extra days.  In 2005, DC made April 16 – the day in 1862 that President Lincoln signed a law that freed about 3000 slaves in Your Nation’s Capital – an official DC holiday.  

For some reason, the federal government observes that District of Columbia holiday – maybe because the federal government is headquartered in Washington.

Because April 16 falls on a Saturday this year, the legal holiday is today.  Because of that, the nationwide deadline for filing federal tax returns this year is Monday, April 18.

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Unless you live in Massachusetts and Maine, of course.  They celebrate a state holiday called Patriots’ Day on the third Monday in April – which is April 18 this year.  So residents of those two states don’t have to file their federal taxes until April 19.

The Battle of Lexington

Patriots’ Day commemorates the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord – also the battle of Menotomy, another skirmish between the rebels and the redcoats that took place in Massachusetts on April 19.

(I’ve heard of Lexington and Concord, but I’ve never heard of Menotomy.  Have you?)

But if those battles took place in Massachusetts, why is Patriots’ Day a holiday in Maine?  Because Maine was part of Massachusetts from colonial times until 1820, when Maine became a state.

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The Boston Marathon takes place on Patriots’ Day.  Since 1959, the Red Sox have had a home baseball game on Patriots’ Day.

And because the finish line of the Boston Marathon isn’t far from Fenway Park, the Red Sox schedule their Patriots’ Day game to begin at 11:00 am, which is before the marathon runners get to the finish line – so the baseball crowd is inside the stadium when the marathon crowd starts to arrive. 

I’m sure you remember the terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon of 2013, which injured hundreds and resulted in the deaths of three people.  

Two police officers subsequently died from wounds they suffered at the hands of the terrorists.

One of the terrorists was killed while resisting arrest.  His brother has been sentenced to death.  (A federal appeals court overturned his death sentence in 2020, but the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the verdict last month.  However, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has imposed a moratorium on federal executions pending a review of federal polices and procedures related to capital punishment.)

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Back to Emancipation Day.

Lincoln freed the slaves in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862.  

About five months later, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in the 11 states that seceded from the Union – not including Tennessee and the parts of Louisiana that were then under Union control – as of January 1, 1863.

The slaves in Tennessee and those parts of Louisiana and in the slave states that did not secede from the Union – Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia (which essentially seceded from Virginia in 1861) – were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.  

Several of those states (Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia) freed their slaves before the Civil War ended.  But the slaves in Delaware and Kentucky were not officially freed until the 13th Amendment was ratified in December 1865.

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“So where does Juneteenth fit in all this?” you’re probably asking yourself.

Good question!

On June 19, 1865, a Union general in Texas issued a proclamation reiterating the purported emancipation of slaves in Texas by President Lincoln some two and a half years earlier.  Freedmen living in Texas began to celebrate their emancipation on “Juneteenth” beginning one year later, and in 1979, Juneteenth became an official Texas holiday.

Other former slave states celebrated the freeing of the slaves on other dates.  For example, Florida commemorated emancipation on May 20 annually, while Mississippians celebrated on May 8 and Viriginians  celebrated on April 3.

But it was “Juneteenth” – a date with no legal significance whatsoever and which had symbolic significance in only one state (Texas) – was chosen as the date for a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of the slaves in 2020.

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This post was intended to be about taxes – not about holidays that celebrate the emancipation of the slaves.  (Or Patriots’ Day.)

That’s why our featured song is Cheap Trick’s “Taxman, Mr. Thief,” which was released in 1977 on there band’s eponymous debut album.

I bought Cheap Trick’s third album (Heaven Tonight) largely because it included “Surrender,” a brilliant little record that really should have been included in the first class of 2 OR 3 LINES “SILVER DECADE” HALL OF FAME inductees.

But Cheap Trick has recorded a lot of other great songs – “ELO Kiddies” and “He’s a Whore” (also from the first album) and a cover of the Move’s “California Man” among them.

Who can forget the scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High where Mike Damone tries to scalp tickets to a Cheap Trick concert?  (You can click here to watch that scene if you did forget it.) 

“Taxman, Mr. Thief” is clearly un hommage to George Harrison’s “Taxman,” which was included on the Beatles’ 1966 album, Revolver. 

American rock stars today don’t have quite as much to complain about when it comes to income taxes as the Beatles did in 1966.  “There’s one for you, nineteen for me” was no exaggeration – the top tax bracket in the UK back then was 95%.  

The U.S. income tax system isn’t that onerous.  But despite what some people believe, it’s extremely top-heavy.

Did you know that about 60% of American households paid zero federal income tax last year?

In 2018, the richest 1% of Americans earned not quite 21% of all income, but paid just over 40% of all federal income taxes.  

The top 10% of Americans paid about the same amount in taxes as the other 90% combined.

By the way, I’m not in that top 10% (much less the top 1%).  I’m retired, so my annual income is quite modest – as is my tax bill.  

Not that I’m complaining.  There are a lot of people much worse off than I am – you don’t have to worry about 2 or 3 lines using crowdfunding to feather its nest.

Click here to listen to “Taxman, Mr. Thief.”

Click below to buy the record from Amazon: