No need to fund free IRS filing
In a recent editorial you asked the question, “Who said the Internal Revenue Service just wants to make the lives of American taxpayers miserable?”
I and numerous family and friends do.
Your editorial makes great fanfare of the IRS’s role out of Direct File. But in essence it boils down to a relatively simple question. The tax man wants to file your taxes for you. What could go wrong?
The answer is this: You’ll pay to find out, and as usual with a government program, you probably can’t afford it. While I could go on and on about how I have always paid my taxes on time, and almost never received my refund on time (I have a relative now waiting 2 years for one with no end in sight), I will instead make this real simple.
According to the IRS, it budgeted $114 million of our tax dollars for Direct File, and processed about 60,000 returns (simple ones, not complex ones). That’s a cost of $1,900 per return. Did anyone bother to tell them that the same “simple” tax return is FREE from Turbo Tax. You can add a State return for $50 and the most complex forms can be done for $115.
The more I hear about free government programs, the more I realize we can’t afford them.
Al Prescott
Westford, MA
Stop funding the murder of civilians
When Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, I said to myself, “What were they thinking? Don’t they know that the Israeli Defense Forces will avenge those 1,200 deaths tenfold?” I was right in principle, but wrong about the math. The death toll in Gaza is now in excess of 36,000 children, women, and men, mostly civilians. That’s 30 Palestinians killed for every Israeli life taken on Oct. 7. Another 77,000 Palestinians have been wounded. And the number of casualties continues to mount.
It was in the news recently that the bombs that killed dozens of refugees in Rafah were made in the U.S.A. This should come as no surprise to Americans. Israel receives more military aid from the U.S. than any other country, to the tune of $3.8 billion a year–and that was before the $8.7 billion in “emergency aid” recently passed into law.
Netanyahu called the bombing a “tragic accident.” Baloney! The killing of tens of thousands of civilians is no “accident.”
My millennial son recently asked me to share graphic images of the victims of the bombing in Gaza with others of my baby-boomer generation, in the hope it would sway opinion over support for Israel. Is that what it would take for us to assume responsibility for the use of our tax dollars?
I am no anti-Semite. I support the rights of all people, including Israelis and Palestinians, to live in peace and security. Murder is morally wrong, whoever the perpetrator. It is time for the U.S. to stop funding Israel’s war!
Keith Penniman
Ashburnham, MA
Equity or not?
How is it not highly racist to infer that “people of color” are unable to pass tests like MCAS? Some can and some can’t, just like students of every ethnicity, economic background or parentage. It’s an insult to all students who study and work hard for their grades, that those who don’t want to rob them of the achievements they’ve made. Shame on those adults who are pushing this unfair and foolish anti-MCAS lobbying.
F. Nowak
Lowell
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. rebuttal
This letter is in response to the Commentary Article entitled “Will voters get the message that our judicial system is on the 2024 ballot too?” by Jackie Calmes Los Angeles Times. On Sunday May 26, 2024
First let me assure Jackie Calmes that we are all aware of our broken judicial system; just not in the same way as she sees it. Crime is at an all time high thanks to the laxed approach taken by most Democratic state-run cities, i.e. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington DC. So excuse us Ms. Calmes if we are more concerned with actual crime over a mostly peaceful protest at the Capitol. There was NO insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6. There were No weapons on any of the protesters, and the only weapons used were by the Capitol Police. Nobody as of yet has been convicted of “insurrection.”
As for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr., having an upside-down flag or any flag in his yard meaning he must step down from his job is ridiculous. First, it’s not just his house! Second, anyone living in the household has the God given right to freedom of speech. Having a Supreme Court Justice living in that same house does not negate that under the Constitution of the United States of which a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to rule by and protect! So, if having a Republican run Senate will confirm more Supreme Court Justices who even in the face of being ridiculed stand up for the Constitution and the First Amendment Rights of Free Speech of all then sign me up!
As for Justice Alito’s personal business dealings of selling his shares of “Bud Light” when the company was failing, (Wow, why would anyone with a good business head do that?) and buying stock in a company doing better, that’s how you play the stock market Ms. Calmes. Having keen business sense is not a crime.
As for “MAGA” I will never understand what the Democrats have against the saying “Make America Great Again”? What is wrong with a GREAT AMERICA? In closing YES I and all of MAGA Conservatives know that the Judicial System is on the 2024 Ballot, we want America to go back to Law and Order, so I will vote for Donald J. Trump and all MAGA Republicans on that ballot to bring back Law and Order to America.
Doreen A. Deshler
Chelmsford, MA
National unity needed to avoid ‘climate hell’
“It is incredible that ‘debate’ on this life-or-death matter [of climate change] has been sustained,” state the editors of the Portland Press Herald in an editorial Sunday.
Throughout the article, titled “Our View: Mitigation of climate change must not be lost to its management,” I resonated with the idea that national unity is necessary to make real progress. As they emphasized, even if the state of Maine were to achieve carbon zero today, it would be lost in national carbon emission variability.
Because of this, the Editors suggest a focus on federal policy, where full recognition of the looming devastation is currently, frustratingly, denied. Nonetheless, the Editors see opportunity in clean energy standards, international agreements, bipartisan forums, and investments in clean energy.
As a highschooler, I am terrified that my future will be the predicted “climate hell.” That we will be blinded by convenience and ignorance, and ignore the urgent warnings everywhere today. I implore the representatives and voters of this country to initiate conversations, push for legislation, and create the national unity that will bring us into a livable future.
Mia Brillantes
Somerville, MA
