American Culture is Stored in the Tax Code
Ask someone outside the US to describe American life, and they might mention sprawling homes, last-minute December donations, business trips that double as vacations, the ubiquity of side hustles, or the proliferation of home studios.
What they likely won’t say is that many of these habits are the product of a tax code that quietly choreographs behavior.
They aren’t oddities of national character so much as logical reactions to a legal system built around deduction and deferral.
That system, sprawling across more than 70,000 pages of federal code, doesn’t just raise revenue—it rewires incentives. It translates private preferences into fiscal signals, making certain ways of living seem smart, efficient, even virtuous.
A nudge in the code becomes a ripple in the culture.
Tax preparation is a case in point. In theory, filing taxes should be a routine civic duty. In practice, it underwrites a $14.3 billion industry. What was once a personal record-keeping exercise now requires software, specialists, or both. The complexity isn’t incidental—it protects those who can afford to navigate it, while turning everyone else into a potential audit risk. The U.S. tax system is one of the few in the world where the government already knows what you owe but still asks you to figure it out yourself.
Housing is another example. The mortgage interest deduction—up to $750,000 of eligible debt for primary residences—cost the federal government around $30 billion in 2022. Two-thirds of that benefit went to the top 20 percent of earners. While pitched as a support for homeowners, in practice it rewards debt and scale. Buyers are often advised to maximize their mortgage—not because they need more space, but because the deduction makes it financially attractive. The result: larger homes, larger loans, and a housing market shaped by the logic of tax avoidance as much as supply and demand.
Charitable giving is another seasonal adaptation. Nearly a third of all donations in the U.S. are made in December, with a surge in the final week. This flurry is less about end-of-year reflection and more about crossing the itemization threshold. For most Americans, donations only reduce taxable income if they exceed the standard deduction ($13,850 for single filers in 2023). Nonprofits time their appeals accordingly, concentrating campaigns into a narrow fiscal window where generosity aligns with deduction.
Work travel has also been quietly redefined. The rise of "bleisure"—mixing business and leisure on the same trip—has become normalized. Roughly two-thirds of corporate travelers report adding personal time to work travel, a trend that feeds into a market projected to reach $685 billion by 2032. IRS rules allow expenses tied to business purposes to be deducted, even if a weekend getaway is folded in. Employers often look the other way; employees treat it as a soft fringe benefit.
After the 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act capped the state and local tax (SALT) deduction at $10,000, high earners in states like New York, California, and New Jersey began weighing the tax savings of relocating. The SALT cap, ostensibly a simplification measure, accelerated domestic migration patterns. Real estate agents in states like Florida and Texas began explicitly marketing homes with "SALT cap advantages," transforming tax geography into a selling point.
Side hustles thrive not just because of labor market shifts or personal ambition, but because of Schedule C. This form lets freelancers and gig workers deduct a range of expenses, from car mileage to home-office improvements. One in three adults reports additional income streams. Whether or not they make significant profit, many treat the filing as a way to recategorize everyday expenses as business write-offs. In effect, the code offers a modest rebate on precarious work.
The story deepens in retirement. By the end of 2022, Americans had stashed $37.8 trillion in 401(k)s, IRAs, and similar tax-advantaged accounts. These vehicles are premised on deferral: the more you can put away today, the more you save on taxes now and the more you earn in compounded returns. But the system disproportionately benefits those with the ability to save in the first place. For those with volatile income or no employer-sponsored plan, the advantage is theoretical. The tax code doesn’t level the playing field—it widens it.
Even the aesthetics of remote work have been colonized by tax logic. IRS rules permit depreciation of certain home-office equipment, turning ergonomic chairs, webcams, and ring lights into business assets. The result? A $16 billion office-furniture market, buoyed by deductions as much as design trends. What might look like lifestyle upgrades are, for many, quietly rational line items.
This isn’t an indictment of taxpayers. Most people are simply following the incentives available to them. But when daily behavior—from where people move to when they give—is shaped by what reduces tax liability, it’s hard to claim that American life reflects pure preference. What it often reflects is optimization.
A better system would not just simplify paperwork. It would reduce the distance between values and actions. That means flattening unnecessary complexity, eliminating deductions that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and designing defaults that reward broad participation instead of niche expertise.
It also means accepting that culture, when mediated through incentives, is never neutral—and that the rules we write don’t just govern what we owe. They can, in many ways, shape who we become.
Law is a Tool of Power, Not Justice
For much of my life, I regarded the law not with idealistic naiveté, but with a pragmatic belief that it was a flawed yet necessary mechanism for curbing abuses of power and delivering some semblance of justice. As I engaged more deeply with the world, my belief in the law’s efficacy began to erode—not abruptly, but gradually, over years of observation, study, and personal experience. The law, I came to understand, is far from an impartial arbiter. Rather, it is a tool of control, designed and wielded by those in power to reinforce their dominance. This disillusionment was difficult, almost painful at times, but it was also clarifying. Now, on the other side of that experience, I feel a sense of responsibility: to help others navigate through the same illusions that once held me captive.