Armed with a college education in accounting and fresh from a seasonal internship at a Big 4 firm, my path appeared to be paved with spreadsheets and balance sheets. But little did anyone know that my destiny would take a detour, leading me down a neon-lit, bass-thumping road to becoming a full-time, jet-setting globe-trotting professional DJ and local event producer. The words of my mother ring ever so fondly in my ears "I'm so glad you turned your party lifestyle into a career” (this was not meant to be a compliment).
Fast forward to the pandemic, where I witnessed friends and acquaintances frantically googling "how to adult" while staring down a mountain of unpaid taxes wanting to qualify for whatever relief was made available. While my entertainment career came crumbling down like a house made of straw, the unexpected twist of fate inspired me to open my own accounting business in December 2022. My experiences since then have been….enlightening. I've met folks who could name what Beyonce ate for breakfast the past week but couldn't differentiate between a balance sheet and a grocery list. I've encountered brave souls with amazing entrepreneurial aspirations of their own, incorporating their businesses, blissfully unaware that this would cost them more money than other more appropriate pathways, let alone know what a bylaw is. 30 second tik tok videos have led some to blindly elect s-corp status for their businesses, ignorant of the requirements or repercussions of failing to meet them.
I've also witnessed the absurdity from the consumer perspective as well such as when trying to qualify for a new apartment. While most folks merely submit bank statements and pay stubs, we self-employed individuals are expected to perform financial acrobatics especially when the property management couldn't decipher an income statement as if it were written in hieroglyphics, insisting on color-coding bank statements for an entire years worth of financial activity.
It's not that we should blame individuals for their lack of education; it's the system itself that's perpetuating this carnival of ignorance. Instead of seeking knowledge or solutions, fingers are pointed, and excuses are made. Our schools' failure to educate on taxes and government finance leaves a generation clueless about how the public machinery operates and why taxes aren't just a bill we'd like to forget. When citizens lack even basic financial knowledge, they're easy prey for the wolves of financial exploitation. Bad faith accountants have diligently crafted tax returns for these fledgling business magnates, seemingly on a mission to embrace blind faith in the numbers, all while secretly counting the dollars they'll rake in when the IRS inevitably comes knocking. These business babies are left wandering blindly into pitfalls and emerging with trust issues that would make a conspiracy theorist blush.
And of course….The IRS, in its infinite wisdom, is beginning to offer free tax return filing to the masses. While saving a few bucks is enticing, does it not strike anyone as a tad absurd that the same folks who collect our taxes are now generously providing us with a free DIY tax-filing kit? It’s not like the rules of the financial game haven’t changed dramatically, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Much of what I even learned earned in college is now as relevant as a horse and buggy in rush-hour traffic. Our trust in institutions is waning, and our society is splintering along fault lines of misinformation and misunderstanding. The rise of political figures who thrive on division is no accident; it's a consequence of our collective financial cluelessness. The festival of errors on this DIY tax prep by the IRS will just lead to audits coined as “low hanging fruit” resulting in a deepening mistrust and justifiable resentment for anything that's “part of the system” by an already scorned working class.
To address this existential crisis, I took matters into my own hands. I proposed a bill, HB4129, to the Illinois General Assembly. This bill champions financial literacy education in high schools, covering everything from the intricacies of tax structures to the consequences of tax evasion. It's a humble effort to prevent our society from descending further into the quagmire of financial darkness. But let's not kid ourselves; this is a long and winding road. Comprehensive financial literacy education won't magically transform us into financial wizards overnight. It's more like a slow crawl out of the financial abyss. We need this education not because it guarantees success, but because it provides a glimmer of hope in an otherwise grim landscape. In conclusion, our financial literacy woes might be fodder for dry humor and the occasional sigh of exasperation, but they're also a genuine concern for our society's future. We're not asking for miracles; just a bit of knowledge to keep us from veering off the financial cliff. It's time to look financial literacy in the eye, give it a wry grin, and say, "Alright, society, let's learn to count our pennies before we run out of them.”
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