The levy as a lever.

• Author: Gearino, G.D.
• Position: FINE PRINT - Taxation

It's always fun when tax season coincides with an election cycle. That presumes, of course, that you share my perverse definition of "fun" as the bizarre spectacle of a presidential candidate being pilloried because he paid the taxes lie owed, a governor declaring she won't run for re-election so she can focus on raising your taxes unencumbered by your disapproval and a member of the public seeming to argue that anything you cam belongs to the government and that we should be grateful for how much we are allowed to keep. Let's take them in order.

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Mitt Romney came in for much extra attention, none of it positive, in mid-January when the Republican frontrunner succumbed to media pressure and released the details of his 2010 federal tax return. Romney paid 14% of his in come that year and estimated that he would pay more than 15% in taxes on his 2011 income. According to all reasonable estimates, that's how much he owed. No trickery or illegality was found. The New York Times reported that, even with the high-priced accounting and legal talent Romney has at his disposal, he ended up sending the government too much money overpaying by $44,000, the newspaper estimated. The Times also pointed out the obvious: "Such is the state of American tax law, circa 2012. It is so complex that even experts get confused, and some of those most able to pay can legally pay lower rates than people who earn far less."

That complexity can be explained simply however. Our tax system is an incomprehensible mess because politicians long ago abandoned the straightforward process of deciding which services to provide and then levying taxes appropriately to fund them. In contrast taxes today are the tool by which government seeks to modify behavior; they are either stick or carrot depending on the circumstance and who's doing the lobbying. The home-building and real-estate industries want everyone to own, not rent, a home, for instance, and the proof of their success can be found in the fact that the mortgage-interest tax deduction is practically an inalienable right. Conversely the government enforces its nanny-state edict that you shouldn't smoke by taxing the bejesus out of cigarettes, using as its excuse the claim that smoking-related health problems are a financial burden on the medical system. (Proven not to be true, by the way.)

In this light, the recent push to increase the tax burden of people like Romney has almost nothing to do with...