Cheers to letter-writer Dale Virch ["What's my incentive for paying taxes on time?" Oct. 29].
He's not alone in wanting to know where his incentive is for paying taxes on time all his working life.
Think about how our government has been lately. If you own a bank or mortgage company and gave out shoddy mortgages to unqualified buyers that caused you to have great losses, the government rewards you.
If you purchased a gas-guzzling car in the past few years, the government rewards you.
And now, if you haven't paid your taxes for a good number of years, the government rewards you, too--no penalty, no fine, no seizure of assets!
If you drove up tons of debt, the government rewards you by letting you walk away debt-free, and you get to keep all the stuff you bought.
It really is paradise. Apparently, the reasonable, responsible people are just doing it the wrong way.
Our reward is higher taxes, and more taxes, and fewer or no services to those who pay those taxes.
Pretty soon there will be no "net" pay on pay stubs. There's certainly no incentive in our system to earn more money, because they'll just take it away from you. But if you spend money you don't have, you'll get a helping hand.
Perhaps the real problem is that our government does exactly the same thing--great spending, huge losses, and no "emergency" fund. Apparently they must consider it business as usual, a typical day.
Maybe it's time for reasonable, responsible citizens to cash in all assets, hide their cash, and start working the system. You're going to get rewarded, trust me.
Connie McLean
Stafford