I guess if you had seen one of my comments without the proper context or any knowledge of my history, you might come to the same conclusion as this person.  Actually, calling me disrespectful of rich people is as accurate as calling Bill Clinton gay or celibate.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tax Guru:

I was linked to your web-site when I queried my search engine on new information regarding the 2004 tax brackets. I was very surprised to read your definition (Evil Rich) of those individuals who have worked very hard and persevered to be able to live a comfortable lifestyle. As a "Tax Guru" I find your comments to be tremendously un-professional and down right offensive. Moreover, it's clients like the "Evil Rich" that allow CPAs to charge a more than healthy fee.

My Reply:

I can't tell if you are joking here or are truly unclear as to my opinions on people who I routinely sarcastically refer to as "evil rich."

Just in case it's the latter, and assuming that others may share your confusion, I will clarify.

I have never considered people who are wealthy to be evil.  I have long been a very proud Libertarian and defender of capitalism to the nth degree.  Punishing or otherwise degrading people who have worked hard to achieve success is entirely opposite from all of my beliefs.

My use of the term "evil rich" is a very unsubtle slam at people who subscribe to the undeniable and very pervasive undercurrent in this country among most of the mainstream media and people in the DemonRat Party who consider it the epitome of evil for any person to have one dollar more than anyone else.  It is their mission in life to rectify this situation by any means possible; but most often by use of the tax code to redistribute wealth from the producers to those who don't have as much.  
As a result, we have a tax system that is extremely punitive of success.  The list of provisions that punish people for doing well is literally endless and those punishment are meted out based on arbitrary definitions of "evil rich" that are established by our elected officials who consider their jobs to include ruling our lives as subjects in a kingdom, which is why I refer to them as our "rulers."

If you think my pointing this fact out is unprofessional, that is your right to have that opinion.  One of my long running complaints about many people in the tax practitioner community is how they just accept the tax system as it is and ignore the underlying reasons for why things are as they are.  They act as if tax policies and laws just materialize in a vacuum.  I have always recognized the tax system as just the symptom of  much bigger underlying problems and I feel it is my responsibility to point those facts out.

I hope this clears this issue you for you.  If you were just making a joke, I'm sorry for being too dense to catch it.

Thank you for writing.

Kerry Kerstetter

 

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 1/05/2005 11:07:00 AM Send this post: