Johnny, Rose Mary, and Uncle Sam

Johnny Carson and Rose Mary Woods died a day apart. One was one of America's greatest entertainers, longtime host of The Tonight Show and fixture on the Oscars telecast. The other was Richard Nixon's secretary, the woman who "accidentally" erased much of the Watergate tapes and stonewalled the investigation.

Your assignment: Write a 2000 word essay drawing parallels between these two. Extra points for linking Woods to Carson's success or linking Carson to the Watergate scandal. You have one hour. Go!

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It's nearly tax time again! For some, it means not seeing their accountant husbands for several months. For others, it means tax evasion and flights to unnamed South American countries. For me, it means a little extra bit of chaos this year.

I am getting W2s from two full-time employers, neither of which has my current address. That means waiting for them to be forwarded, but in Chicago, it likely means that they'll get lost in the mail. In addition, I have an unknown number of freelance gigs who will submit 1099-misc forms for work I did. People with freelance experience know what that means: the self-employment tax! Yay! I get to pay around a 40% tax on the income I earned through freelancing.

There are several ways of making this more bearable:
1. File quarterly returns so you're not hit with a huge bill once a year.
2. Put a set amount of your income into an interest-bearing account, so you can actually make a little bit of change on it before you have to give it to the government.
3. Sit around and do nothing until the tax bill comes and kills you.

Guess which one I picked.

I think the self-employment tax is one of the most un-American of taxes. Isn't it the American Dream to go out on your own, do your own thing, entrepreneurial spirit and all that? Go west, young man, and be your own boss? Then why does the taxman put on his heavy boots to stomp on your fingers as you reach for your divine right as an American?