On Franken and Taxes

I have no real love for Al Franken–he’s annoying, an arch-liberal, and (mostly) unfunny–but I can’t really get up in arms over the fact that he got tripped up by the tax code. Yes, he should have had a professional do his taxes (and, if the professional messed this up on his behalf, said professional needs to go), but the tax system is so arcane and full of nonsense that these things are bound to happen.

Consider, for instance, the fact that athletes have to pay local taxes on whatever they earn when they play road games. No, seriously: there’s a “jock tax.” From MSN:

You may never have hit a grand slam or made a slam dunk, but it’s possible you might face the same “jock tax” that costs Alex Rodriguez and Shaquille O’Neal thousands of dollars every time they play a game out of state.

The tax, which emerged in the 1990s to tap the huge paychecks of visiting professional athletes, has spread to include just about anyone who works extended periods in a state that levies a personal income tax.

The 41 states that do so have always held the right to collect tax from nonresidents who do business there. But athletes and entertainers have been the chief targets for nonresident taxes, partly because they tend to make lots of money and partly because their schedules are public and available to tax agencies.

This is what the tax code hath wrought–greedy states stealing from visiting entertainers. Ridiculous.