At Tax.com, we believe that, when it comes to taxes, knowledge is power. The more you know about our tax system, the more power you have to control it. I also believe that, at the moment, the tax system controls us.

The income tax is a complicated mess. (Are you having fun right now filling out your tax returns?) It’s unfair; it’s riddled with special credits and deductions for special interests; and it lets some well-to-do people pay less in taxes than those who clean their houses and mow their lawns.

It’s also not very transparent. That’s how the politicians like it. If you can’t understand how the system works, you won’t recognize all the goodies that they put in it for their lobbyist friends who turn around and raise money for the politicians’ re-election campaigns, giving them another term to give out more tax goodies that you and I don’t get, leading to more campaign contributions, and so on. So, it keeps getting more complicated, more unfair, and less transparent.

Feel like a sucker yet? I know I do. The politicians just assume that we won’t care enough to do anything about it.

Can we change it? Of course. As I said, knowledge is power. The more we know, the more equipped we’ll be to demand something better.

That’s one reason why we started Tax.com – to create a place for the average taxpayer to find out about the tax system; learn what’s happening behind the scenes; and discover what’s coming next. We believe that those who design and administer our tax system do not get enough scrutiny.

This site is sponsored by Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has worked for almost 40 years to improve federal, state, and international tax systems, and to make tax administration more transparent. This site is not an extension of Tax Analysts, but it will tap that organization’s vast tax databases and its wealth of talented writers. I’m the president and publisher of Tax Analysts, and I’ll put in my two cents regularly on this site. And I won’t be alone. Some of our writers will weigh in as well. I hope you look around, let us know what you think, and visit us often.

At Tax.com, we provide facts and opinions. But we start with a basic premise or two. As Justice Holmes suggested years ago, taxes are the inevitable price we pay if we want to live in a civilized society. But taxes are more than inevitable. They are actually a good thing if done right and fairly. They finance our common defense, the highways on which we travel, and the retirement and health care that enables our senior citizens to live in dignity. That is, the taxes we pay reflect, or are supposed to reflect, the funding priorities that we set for our nation.

So, whether you think that your government is already spending your money like a brigade of drunken sailors; or you think that your government should spend even more of it by raising taxes to fund health care, education, and energy reform; or you just want to learn more about taxes, we hope you stick around and join the discussion. We think it will be worth your while.