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| Washington Crossing the Delaware Emanuel Leutze Source |
Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. - Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789
It is that time again, or nearly so - tax season. Many of you will have already done your income tax forms, if you're a denizen of these United States that is. Many others are just now downloading the forms, reading the instructions and giving serious thought to paying someone to do the paperwork for them.
Normally I wait until April to do my taxes, they were, for many years, rather simple. Once I retired from the Air Force they got a little more complicated, mostly due to the fact that I was making a lot more money on "the outside" as some are wont to say.
I would also wait as actually doing the thing would normally take me two days, one for Federal, one for state. It's not that the paperwork is onerous and time consuming, but that I like to take my time and make sure every "i" is dotted and every "t" crossed.
Mind you, those would be two days when I wasn't at work, that's right, I did them on the weekend. Which cut badly into my time for reading, playing, and reading some more.
But now? Well, I have the time for it, don't I?
I also started early as I started drawing Social Security last year which tends to complicate things, tax-wise. Now, much of one's Social Security may or may not be taxable, not all of it is, I can tell you from having done the paperwork. Thing is, when they start paying you, they don't mention a damned thing about taking taxes out. (What? They can do that? Of course they can, how many politicians do you know who aren't willing to tax anything and everything?)
In my case, zero was deducted.
So Uncle Sam is getting a nice check from me this year. As long as the stooges in Congress don't waste it, I have no problem with it.
And to be sure, Congress nevers wastes our money, do they?
If you believe that, can I interest you in a bridge?
Author's Note: The painting of Washington crossing the Delaware is to recall those men back in 1775 who decided that they didn't like the taxes being levied upon them. To be fair, Parliament was within their rights to tax the Colonies. They just were arrogant about it. There's a reason for that motto on Washington DC's license plates. I don't like many of the taxes levied upon me, but hey, I do have representation, in theory. So ...
Because of the recent revelations about how taxpayer $$$ have been spent over the decades my tax preparation season has been spent grinding my teeth more than usual Sarge.
ReplyDeleteSame here.
DeleteI was shocked to see the amounts, huge amounts, of tax money going to the people and causes that put the money back in the pockets of the people voting on where the money goes. The system sure looks crooked when they drag it out into the sunlight.
ReplyDeleteAs to this years taxes, we have not heard from the SS folks with the 1099s yet.
Odd that last bit, we received ours in January. I think you can also get them online.
DeleteSarge, as part of my relocation package this year I get some fancy company to do my taxes - Which is great, because they seem particularly complex this year.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit every year I become less and less excited about paying taxes because I see less and less value coming from the money.
Each year the instructions seem to get more cloudy, it's the reason tax lawyers exist. State taxes are far more complicated, at least in Little Rhody them seem to be.
DeleteThe system is far too complicated, recent revelations seem to provide the reason for that. Obfuscate and confuse, that's what you do to the people you are robbing.
RE: SSA 1099 forms, you can find them on your MySSA page. I think I printed mine out mid-January.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was working I'd try to balance things so I was usually within a couple of hundred one way or the other, usually getting a small refund from both State and Fed.
We did get a huge surprise when my wife finally got her SS Disability and the lump sum for like 8 years Checked with IRS, California Tax Board, and Social Security and were told that it wouldn't be counted as income on our taxes. We were stupid and didn't get it in writing, or even gets names. Had H&R do our taxes that year....owed just north of Ten Grand. We finally finished paying that off a couple of years ago. Did it in about 100 easy payments of ~$135/ month, plus whatever tax refund I would have received.
Taxes are fun! (Said no one, ever.)
DeleteYup, it gets incrementally harder as each income source gets added on. I'm an historian, not a damn accountant, but attended enough schools that I SHOULD be able to fill out tax forms on my own. Well, that bit of pride was demolished about 15 years ago, and now I gladly hand the nice tax lady my stuff and a few weeks later she calls me and tells me to come sign the forms and write checks. I write one to her with great pleasure and gratitude. Then I write checks to the feds and state wasteful corruptocrats with bitter resentment.
ReplyDeleteI feel cheated in that my "representation" is skewed by many who have no skin in the tax PAYING game, only grifting the system for "free stuff."
I would love to see tax withholding ended, so that when tax time comes around, people have to write a check for the full amount, and absolutely never get "refunds" for overpayment, which many see as getting money from the government, not understanding it is really THEIR money which was confiscated from their earnings and held (without benefit of clergy or interest) for most of a year.
Amazon should have an annual sale on 15 April with tar, feathers and pitchforks at bargain prices.
John Blackshoe
You forgot the torches. One thing that so many people forget, or don't know, about tar and feathers is that the tar was HOT. As in blistering, flesh searing hot.
DeleteWhat REALLLLLYYY gripes me about refunds is that we don't get any interest on the money.
There were two types of tar-and-feathering. The hot one, which you mentioned, was painful and potentially deadly.
DeleteThe other was cold tar, basically covering the individual with pitch and then feathers, which was eminently survivable. Not fun until one finally sheds the last of the pitched flesh.
JB - Bitter resentment, aye.
DeleteJoe - Ya gotta heat that tar!
DeleteBeans - Isn't cold tar awfully viscous and hard to spread?
DeleteIt's more liquidy than the tar used on hot tar roofs as it's cut with some turpentine, which evaporates eventually. It's like the cooler tar used for caulking ships and such. It has to be warmed, just not boiling hot like hot tar is. Cold tar can be scraped off, carefully, to a point, and can be loosened with more turpentine.
DeleteI'm always impressed that you know such things.
DeleteYa'll are filing your taxes?
ReplyDeleteAnd, you're not?
DeleteThe problem was taxation without representation was tyranny according to Mr. Otis back in the day. Those upstart colonists had no standing in Parliament.
ReplyDeleteI have had a CPA do my taxes for the last 40 years. I'd rather pay him for a job well done than the feds and state.
But what part of our current taxation do we really have any say so these days? Foreign aid to corrupt governments and corrupt non-government agencies? I didn't vote for that. Nor did I vote for the continued funding of the UN and its various programs. Nor for the importation of some 20-50 million illegal aliens on our backs.
DeleteThere's a whole lot of the fedgov that we didn't vote for but the bureaucratic state put in place despite what we wished.
Gerry - I get the CPA thing, but I'm leery of giving a stranger access to my financial data.
DeleteBeans - Elon has peeled back the rotten old log to reveal all the nasty creatures scurrying off with OUR MONEY.
DeleteSarge, The joy of having an accountant is not even to have to look at the tax form, because mine is a little complicated. I provide income and expenses in a spreadsheet, along with the tax reporting documents sent me and supporting documentation. She decides what is taxable/deductible (she has been doing mine for years and knows my system well). Also, the firm will back me on any mistakes she makes in case of an audit. When filed (she does it), I get a nice letter saying to pay the US and State this and this, along with the estimated tax payments for the next year, and the bill for services rendered. The nice part is the preparation fee is deductible on next year's taxes.
DeleteStill don't want people looking at my data. Heck, it ain't calculus.
DeleteOne of the lovely things I love about living in Florida is no state income tax. Sales tax varies from county to county but since it's figured at point-of-sale, it's no mental issue, unless one is trying to deduct it in the itemized deductions section.
ReplyDeleteNo state income tax is a good thing.
DeleteYes, we have representation, but do we? RINOs- Representatives in Name Only- they seem to blur the lines between serving us and making us serve them.
ReplyDeleteConcur.
Delete