Taxman cometh

George Harrison's Taxman has been nominated as the greatest conservative rock song of all time. The fab four working-class stiffs from Liverpool suddenly found themselves facing confiscatory British tax rates in the 1960s, and they didn't like it one bit. So George sang about how the tax collectors take nineteen of every twenty.

By the way, Paul McCartney played the wild and crazy guitar solo on the song. Paul always did want to be the band's lead guitarist.

Even the Brits have eased their tax rates a little since then. But as this AOL story reminds us, game show contestants can still get nailed with impressive tax bills. A favorite scam of the tax collectors is slamming contestants with California's high state tax rates if the show is taped in the once-golden state.

The tax grabbers also like to value non-cash prizes at inflated amounts to get a few extra bucks. They've got lots of nasty ways to ding you, like all nefarious tax collectors throughout history. The story concludes with sensible advice about "saving the money and not going on wild spending sprees."

Several commenters at the site also suggest calling Dave Ramsey. Was he ever a game show contestant? If he was, I bet he figured his taxes as he played.