Today’s read is from humor columnist Tom Purcell. Here’s an excerpt:

Taxes are on my mind all year long, regrettably, and it seems in one form or another they are always due.

I can always sense when it’s tax-paying time: It’s when I start to save a little money and enjoy, wrongly, the exhilarating sense that I am finally getting financially ahead.

In the autumn I have to pay taxes on my house and the handful of rental properties I’ve been able to scrape together — and the taxes are sizable.

Then when spring rolls around I have to write a massive check to the IRS and be reminded that my silent business partner, the federal government, always gets its cut of my income.

Most people agree that some taxes are necessary and some government is necessary — but I’d be a lot happier if our federal government were half as big and my taxes were half as much.

Read it all here.