Dumb Tax

In one of Beth’s posting’s recently she referred to the ‘dumb tax’. I don’t know if it’s a common American expression but I think it’s brilliant. The context made it self-explanatory...

"He was the first bear I made, so I paid the "dumb tax" on him--I learned what does and doesn't work!"

Looking it up I found it was also a jocular term for the National Lottery and one other reference in Scholastic.com -

" The best thing I heard this week was on NPR, when a traffic engineer praised the pioneering work of his fellow urban planners for "paying the dumb tax" for the rest of the profession." The tone of the article, headed 'Dumb Tax', suggests it is a pretty new expression. This is one new one I can live with quite happily!