Wealth & Taxes

Have you paid your taxes yet?  If not, you have two more days!  Since Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in Washington, D.C., fell on a Saturday this year, the holiday was observed on Friday, April 15th.  As a result, the deadline for filing taxes was extended to Monday, April 18th. 

Of course, we have to file our taxes, but not all of us will have to pay taxes.  The ultra wealthy won't have to pay a thing.  Just like Leona Helmsley once said, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."[

This incensed Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request) -- and this is the subject of his now classic poem "The IRS is on this Guy" (below on the left).  His poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "The Butterfly upon the Sky" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:
 
The IRS is on this Guy
Who has a famous Name
But hasn’t any tax to pay
But has a cushy Home
It isn’t fair to us I say
And wilder I believe
He’ll get away and never pay
A refund he’ll receive –

By Emily Dickinson:
 
The Butterfly upon the Sky,
That doesn't know its Name
And hasn't any tax to pay
And hasn't any Home
Is just as high as you and I,
And higher, I believe,
So soar away and never sigh
And that's the way to grieve –