It’s tax season again, and even if you have people from H&R Block telling you that you don’t need to break a sweat, taxes still make people feel the urge to hit their head against a wall.

Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but this country has certainly made its citizens feel ripped off. Instead, taxes should make people feel like they are contributing to the country.

“It definitely puts a dent in the pockets for those of us who have to pay our own way through school,” says freshman accounting major Casey Planert.

He thinks most people dread taxes because they feel like they are being robbed of their hard-earned money.

Forking over the money, however, isn’t the only reason people curse taxes.

Public policy professor Gerald T. Gabris agrees and thinks people would be more willing to pay if they saw clear outcomes such as better roads and schools.

“What people want is honesty and fairness.” Gabris said.

Simply, if people knew what their dollars were going toward, and saw the changes, most people would not mind the subtraction from their paychecks.

“The problem is the government chooses to throw money away into things like bailing out failing companies who then use the money to provide multi-million dollar bonuses to CEOs. There are better things that can be done with our tax money,” Planert said.

Gabris thinks people are afraid of corruption.

Freshman accounting major Fabian Ratulowski said, “I think there is a limit to the extent of what good taxes do for a community and the country as a whole. Too much taxation can do more harm than good.”

What America needs is a system of tax dollars that will benefit the public firsthand, not government operations. The one perk to taxes for some people is forgetting how much money was actually taken from each pay check and getting some of it returned.

“The government takes away minimal amounts of money from each of my paychecks, but I don’t mind getting some of that money back the next year in a lump sum,” Ratulowski said.

Gabris recalled a sentiment from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who reminds us that taxes buy us civilization. Although the distribution system is in need of improvement, taxes are necessary for a stable nation.