Hamid Souri, Delivery driver and student, Bellevue

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"I don't know... This is the first year I'm filing taxes myself. I think the taxes are fair. I'm trying to make sense out of the forms... I think half of the taxes goes to good purposes -- I hope. If they do use it for good, then I'm happy to pay the taxes. Good uses could be schools, maybe children's homes, nursing homes -- I like those."

Irene Landin, Stenographer, Seattle

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"You know where it says to check for $2 or $3 dollars for the presidential campaigns? I think they should have a pie chart showing what percent you want to go to the military or the homeless."

Roger Moore, Salesperson, Mercer Island

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"Yes. We have good roads, we haven't been invaded lately, the education system is good... I'm in favor of a progressive income tax, not a flat tax... A certain proportion of waste is unavoidable since there's no competitive aspect to a government agency. However, if the spirit is right, I think there's value received. I think there's little corruption in this country... I've already filed and received my refund. I filed by phone -- you can do that with the EZ and it's a flash."

Leslie Dunn, Homemaker and homeschooler, Kirkland

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"My general inclination is to say no, mainly because I feel like the government is not very efficient in the way they use our money... There's a lot of red tape in government and when you give money to private companies, they use it much more effectively and efficiently... I don't know whether a flat tax system is fair or not, but with any system, the money that wouldn't be taxed would be put back into the economy."

Cary White, International model, Redmond

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"I am not the person to ask -- I'm really anti-government. It's just crazy how we pay taxes on everything -- your car, your property, your house, the interest on your mortgage payment, your phone. I know the government has to run some way or the other, but it seems everything's taxed. Even water! All the bills -- when does it end?... Instead, I would tax the hell out of cigarettes and alcohol like Canada does... I'd shift to taxing different things more instead of everything a little... I think government has greedy individuals who will take more than needs to be taken, but there's no way around that because it's a bureaucracy. But we have a great country -- I work overseas where it's natural to see broken sidewalks and people begging..."

Sally Polk, Librarian, Bothell

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"I am not of the school that thinks we're a terribly taxed society. I think a lot of it is misspent, but I think we all need to carry our fair share and I think we get a tremendous amount of good from our taxes... I have a good friend who lives in Oregon and who was devastated property-wise by the recent floods, and she was so grateful that FEMA was able to give her an out-and-out grant so she could fix enough of her driveway so she could just get back into her own home. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to. And she doesn't have to pay it back! Now she can apply for the non-emergency loans... It was so neat to see my friends taken care of... Yes, there's a lot of good that comes from our taxes."

Copyright © 1996 by the Bellevue, WA-based Journal American newspaper.

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