Word: cheated
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...only do supposedly respectable people cheat on their taxes-federal, state and local-but supposedly respectable institutions help them do it. "Take someone who has just bought $1,000 worth of clothing," says Connecticut Revenue Commissioner Orest Dubno. "The store can ship a necktie somewhere out of state, so it can show a UPS address and receipt, and the buyer avoids the state sales tax. Actions such as these contribute to losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars...
...through the long hours of the night and finally make peace with the exasperating enemy known as Form 1040. Most of them will do their duty and then surrender an average of about $3,300 to the IRS. A large and growing number of Americans, however, will decide to cheat. Indeed, tax evasion is becoming not just a sickness but an epidemic, no longer kept secret but widely admitted, even joked about and accepted...
There remains the question of public perceptions. Is the tax system really fairer than many people seem to think? Probably. Is the belief in its unfairness actually a cause or simply a symptom of people's desire to cheat? Probably both. Traditionally, the IRS has attempted at this time of year to improve its image of fairness and power by launching a few well-publicized prosecutions, or at least auditings, of some celebrated people (see box). But it may be that such publicity only strengthens the current cynicism, and makes it easier to rationalize tax cheating on the grounds...
...always easy, of course, to tell oneself that "everyone" is doing what one secretly wants to do. It is easy to say that this is what the smart people are doing, the winners, the people who know how to beat the system. Easy but wrong. People who lie and cheat on their taxes are neither smart nor winners; they are simply cheats and liars. In the end, the money that they steal is not being stolen from a faceless government; it is being stolen from their honest neighbors who as a result must pay not only their own taxes...
Another driver, Philip Kelsey, said leasing would be bad for the public. "Leasing gives drivers motivation to cheat customers because they want to cover their rent quickly," he said...