Even Superheroes Have To Pay Tax
Or do they. A nicely entertaining discussion of Superman #149 where Superman gets hit up for $1,000,000,000 of unpaid tax. Which in the fifties was a lot of money. This seems a surprisingly round number, but like many Superman stories of the age the whole thing (especially the denouement) does not really stand up to that much scrutiny. Items the story forgets:
-How exactly does the FBI plan to catch Superman?
-He could tell them that he happily pays tax in his other identity. The taxman would have to swear to secrecy.
-He is actually an inhabitant of the North Pole, not the US. Indeed he doesn’t have a birth certificate and one assumes probably no social security number.
-He could demonstrate the tax savings made by the US government for all the crimes against them he has prevented
-He could always hit up Lex Luthor. Literally. Or indeed Bruce Wayne.
On this issue, this column was written due to the end of the US tax year, where everyone files their tax. Which has always struck me as a really, really stupid system compared to PAYE. Can anyone tell me exactly what the advantages are, compared to the abject constant fear of having to annually file your taxes and keep receipts?
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Andrew Farrell on April 17th, 2007
I think the first point’s quite interesting, because it shows a slightly different attitude than modern times. In a sense you’ve answered it yourself - the two panels show the FBI man catching Superman by being caught by him, but crucially the moral whammy has been laid upon him, and after that, he’ll have to pay because he’s the good guy. The moral is that even good people can forget to pay their taxes.
I imagine that if Clark Kent were paying a billion dollars in taxes, the IRS would already know. Unless he claimed that he was actually Mexican!
Were there actual billionaires in 1961? We just don’t know.
One point that really hasn’t been asked is: if Superman’s gathering the riches and gold all the time, why doesn’t he just give some of it to pay his taxes? Does he go out drinking (Tennents Super, naturally)every Saturday and destroy it all in a fit of socialism?
Andrew Farrell on April 17th, 2007
Also two billion people wtf (weeps for future of humanity)
Andrew Farrell on April 17th, 2007
I would definitely believe that at least one supervillain has been done for tax avoidance in an Al Capone-style “Never mind the pile of bodies, you’ve not been giving Uncle Sam his due!”. The most obviously, Lex Luthor, is these days the most unlikely, but has he always been a business as well as crinimal mastermind?
FT's Tom on April 17th, 2007
Lex Luthor has only been a business mastermind since 1986. Prior to that he was a mad scientist.
I am sure a big time crime villain got done for parking violations. Maybe that was in real life or a fillum, not a comic.
FT's Pete Baran on April 17th, 2007
OK, he really should have hit up Batman then. Or at lest flown to a planet made of gold. OH NOES: GOLD KRYPTONITE.
AB on April 26th, 2007
It raises another issue for me. Superman doesn’t defend positive law of the government, for example he fought the Nazis although they did abide by their own law. Superman follows an absolute justice which is independent of the legal system. Therefore, why doesn’t he save people from being taxed by the IRS? Many people don’t want to receive any service by the government, yet, they are forced to agree to it, and forced to pay… if any private company forced people to pay for its services without their consent, Superman would surely fight it as an evil enterprise. Why doesn’t Superman fight the IRS? Sure its “legal”, but how does taxation fit in Superman’s ideal of justice??