“Death and taxes,” my father would tell me as a child, “are the only things a man cannot escape.” Those words were spoken with the iron assurance of a man who had seen the many avenues of life, and with time, I came to know them to be true as well. Like any living entity, a government seeks the resources it needs to sustain itself and grow; what it needs is money, almost exclusively drawn from taxes. As any sane man would, I should add that I am not in love with taxes, but I understand their necessity if not the scalping, gutter-scraping nature with which politicians apply them. 

The only sort of person who could get away with not paying taxes would be someone like the Pope, right? The Pope is a dictator of Vatican City, which itself is its own nation. Kings of old wouldn’t have to pay taxes, I would presume, as the nation itself is sort of like their own personal bank account. Julius Caesar is in the running for "wealthiest human of all time," as when he ruled Rome, all of the nation of Egypt was considered his personal property. Thusly, he wouldn’t have to pay taxes, at least there. What would have been the point? 

To begin to proclaim that one is an equal to all in an ethical democracy, paying taxes would be the bare minimum. If –all– men and women should suffer death and suffer taxes, then to be exempt from one would be tantamount to an elevation above the rest. Even dictators still return to dust: but only dictators can sue their own government, enrich themselves “and allies” with nearly two billion dollars of taxpayer money (a fund which will have no public oversight) and – and, this is wild – the Internal Revenue Service be “forever barred and precluded” from ever pursuing any claims and other actions against President Trump, his family members, or businesses with the Trump name. 

How wild is that? That Trump and his sons are now entirely exempt from paying taxes? I mean, sure, it doesn't say that they no longer have to pay taxes, but that is a semantic difference. If a sheriff is barred from arresting you for murder, even though it’s still illegal for you to kill, you can keep shooting people in front of the sheriff, and he can do nothing. Incredibly, this outcome between Trump suing the IRS for your money and winning is also not even the worst thing to come out of the whole affair – it is that a door was opened when the two-billion-dollar taxpayer ‘fund’ for those ‘wronged’ by the Biden Administration was created, whose funds are now shadow funds. 

Who gets the money? Is it really people who were ‘wronged’? Hell, I was wronged. Me! Me over here! Gimmie money! Mr. Biden hurt me. Because there is a stipulation that the funds will be hidden from public record, two billion dollars could go to any one, two or five people. 

And now that the door is open for ‘revenge funds’, what happens in the future if democrats ever regain control of the White House and Congress? Whoop! More taxpayer money is now allotted into a ‘Trump hurt me fund’, whose payments are hidden from public transcript, to go to any 1, or 5,000 persons. What a wild, crazy door that has opened and now can never be shut again. 

Furthermore, if anyone wins a suit against the IRS, a possible outcome is now, “Mr. Man, his family, his business can no longer be pursued by the IRS for money or anything.” For the sake of a hypothetical, we could say that President Trump will not use his new dynastic (since it strangely protects his sons, and business with the ‘Trump name’) tax exemption powers to hide other people's stolen money from the IRS; any future person who gains this new sort of victory over the IRS could do exactly that. 

“Fiscally Responsible," conservatives are near extinction. House Representative from Kentucky, Thomas Massie, dared stand against Trump on the issues of sending billions of dollars of taxpayer money overseas, and pushing to have the Epstein files released, and for that, Trump is vocally supporting his Republican incumbent. Which one is it? Is Massie’s support of the files’ release what angered Trump? And thus, Trump is protecting the men inside it? Or is it that Massie isn't on board with billions of your money being sent overseas while Trump is? 

Under a Republican controlled Congress (every branch of the Government is Republican right now), the national debt is skyrocketing, taxes have been increased for the poorest Americans, gas prices are bonkers, and your money is being funneled to other nations. And also, there is now a dynastic extra-money-tag applied to the Trump family. 

A President who sues his own nation’s citizens in a government he controls has gone beyond the title of ‘President’. 

“Trump V. Internal Revenue Service, No. 1.26-cv-20609 (S.D. Fla.) Signed by “Acting Attorney General,” Todd Blanche.

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.

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