After a day of income tax preparation, my mind was tired and feeling slightly abused not so much about what we, now I, owe than getting the right information on the right form on the right line. For a while, I thought IRS had simplified it until I realized I was missing parts of the instructions.

Oh well, it just meant I was not done and faced working on it more this week. Our financial life was not complicated enough to have a professional tax preparer. Husband Paul did our taxes until three years ago; then I took over with his helpful backup.

Of course, now he is not here to advise and consent.

I am grateful our taxes are relatively uncomplicated. I do have the tax feature of maintaining a small business which I started in the early 1990s as an independent consultant to health care organizations.

Now my small business is more of a microbusiness. Still, it is enough to file taxes as a business. At least, the government seems to think so.

I added being an author and writer to my business when I began to receive compensation as an author and writer. However small my compensation in any given year as an author/writer, it was still reportable for tax purposes.

Preparing taxes this year is another first experience as a widow without armchair consultation from the man who knew so much more than I.

I finished the taxes and waited two days to file. I learned from Paul that it is a good idea to take a rest from it for at least a day and review it once more with a fresh mind.

Paying taxes for last year is more financially painful than the prior year because it was a good year for retirement mutual funds. At least I think that is the reason.

Given my sorrow, I paid very little attention until now and now only because I must file the taxes which adds more weight to my grief.

Many drops in the bucket

I have often thought about how little our tax bill adds to the revenue needs of the country. Fortunately, there are millions of singles, couples, corporations, small businesses, and more that are paying taxes to fund the government.

How else can the government govern, provide services, maintain defense, start wars, and do much more?

Well, we know one “how else” – just add to the national debt. Adding must be easy since it continues to happen.

The U.S. national debt as of January 2025 is reported to be around $35.9 trillion, an unimaginable amount for most if not all people.

Politicians of both parties, although more from the conservative ends of the spectrums, express grave concern about the debt. Since the early 1980s, I have had at least two people in my life who have continually expressed grave concern about our nation’s debt, what this debt means to them then and now and what it will mean to their grandchildren.

Nothing has happened yet, at least not of which we are aware, which renders those forecasters into those who cried wolf.

Today, Standard & Poor’s credit rating for the United States stands at AA+ with stable outlook, notably not AAA.

Should we worry?

Either rating does not mean a debt crisis will not happen.

I never asked who or what will pull the plug which will sweep us into an unimaginable crisis from which we might never recover. I rather think the crisis will be brought on by a thousand “cuts” of services — social security, health care, education and many more of which we know and many more that we do not know yet are essential to the economy of our nation.

Although … the crisis might be brought on by a president who spends because he or she can, in large part because we are a nation of people who pay our taxes.

Or could it be a president who decides the cure for all economic disease is tariffs?

We will soon find out. On this day of writing, it is not looking good. The DOW ended down 1679 at 40,546 on the president’s announcement of new tariffs.

Then there is the fact that not all people pay their fair share of taxes because they have excellent accountants who know how to legally escape paying taxes.

Something is wrong with the system when certain people escape taxes through legal means not known, affordable and/or available to the rest of us.

I have learned while going through preparing last year’s taxes that I am in for tax sticker shock when I file as a single person unless I do something different than we have in the past.

I doubt that will include getting married again or starting a business or incurring enormous deductible medical costs, at least I hope not.

And I do want our investments to pay off.

I also want our country’s taxes to include incentives that encourage investments that create jobs and the well-being of our people.

I do not mind paying our taxes.

I do mind others not paying their fair share of taxes.

I will not complain about paying taxes any more than I complain about getting social security checks every month.

That is as long as ridding the system of existing and possible fraud and abuse is built into the system.

Unlike the mother-in-law of Trump’s secretary of commerce, I would complain if I did not receive my social security benefit.

Trump and his administration need to remember we all paid into social security.

I can understand why Trump and his wealthy supporters do not need social security, but their personal circumstance is irrelevant to most American taxpayers.

The current chainsaw approach of arbitrarily cutting services to cut taxes is at best thoughtless and at worst without mercy.

We are right to expect, even demand, that the Trump administration is careful with those cuts because America can bleed and go the way of the debtor who dies in poverty.

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Bertha Cooper, an award-winning featured columnist with the Sequim Gazette, spent her career years in health care and is the author of the award-winning “Women, We’re Only Old Once.” Cooper and her husband lived in Sequim for 26 years. Now widowed, Cooper continues to live in the area she has grown to love. Reach her at columnists@sequimgazette.com.