Finished up my taxes today. Owe some money to the feds but that is covered by the money I’m getting back from Georgia. Since I’m a SRF and have investment income, I have to pay estimated taxes every quarter. Yannow, the one thing that would make people rise up in arms is the abolishing of withholding. Then people would actually see how much they are paying in taxes. Ask one of your friends or coworkers how much they’ve paid in taxes. Here is the number one answer: “I didn’t pay anything. I got money back.”
Those of us who have investment income, or those of us who are self-employed (They really get screwed since they have to pay twice as much FICA as people who have jobs) know what we pay since every quarter we have to send a check to the gummint. Then, if we don’t send enough money besides having to send additional money on April 15th, we have to pay a fine if our estimated taxes are too low. Withholding is the second biggest scam run by the gummint. The first? Social Security, but that’s a topic for another day.
By the way, now that I’m collecting Social Security and I am on Medicare, I think the FICA taxes should be raised. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
If you want to see someone understand taxes all of a sudden, talk to a younger person who has worked as a contractor, with direct payment from the company that contracted them. That is, they are not an employee of a company that holds the contract.
They are supposed to pay quarterly income and both sides of SS from their payments during the year. When it comes to their first tax season they get a really big surprise.
George v.
Exactly, which is why I say if there were no withholding, the tax code would change really quick. Eliminate withholding and move the elections to April 16 and there would be a massive change in this country. Think what that would do to the Dimocrat Party and the RINO wing of the Republican Party.
That is a great idea, Denny. To expand on the April 16 election day idea, the Presidential inauguration should happen on April 20. That way the outgoing President won’t have but 3 days to pardon all his buddy-pals in the slammer or headed for the slammer. Kind of what Ford did with Nixon back in the 70s.
But, as good as that idea is, too bad it will never happen in our lifetime. Not with fraudlent Republicans like Boehner and McConnell infesting Congress trying to push themselves off as “leaders”, but actually showing them selves to be loyal and sympathetic (emphasis on the “pathetic” part of “sympathetic”), kowtowing minions of The Ayatollah Obama and Pinocchio Pelosi.
The IRS is just a government version of organized crime. When you owe money, you’d better pay now. If they owe you money, they’ll get around to it sometime. If they make a mistake, oh well, they’ll fix it at their leisure. If you make a mistake, you’re probably going to jail for tax fraud.
What’s more, there is no due process. You are guilty until proven innocent. That right there violates the Constitution. I was in a tax shelter and I filed a return based on numbers from the IRS. I got audited. When I pointed out that I used IRS numbers the reply was that they came from a different office. WTF? How is this legal? They told me to take them to court. Since it was only $270, I paid. A friend who was in the same shelter did take them to court. He would take off work to go to court and when he got there, the IRS would ask and get a continuance. This happened at least three times. I don’t know the final resolution because by that time I had moved to Atlanta.
Sounds like organized crime to me.
And typical of any government office, the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing. I wish I could drop off the grid and deal in cash only.
If the IRS was doing its job here, rather than bowing and scraping to The Ayatollah, they would have hauled in All the Tax Cheat long ago. Instead, by following The Ayatollah’s orders (my opinion here) he is allowed to roam free and is getting more invites to the White House more times that Alfred E. Newman Biden. If any of us owed the IRS even $100.00 in back taxes, the IRS would be all over us like ugly on an ape.
George V above hits the HR. while in college my youngest son worked as a contractor – boy, did he complain at tax time! That is when I figured the best way to preserve our country would be that each month we received our full pay (taxes, benefits, etc) and then wrote a check for each item normally withheld. Listen to folks scream – also understand economics better.
Denny …
Do not forget courtesy of the Democrats particulary Al Gore those of us who have income sources which push our Social Security above the threshold find a portion of our Social Security benefits subject to income tax despite the fact this is doubledipping as we paid income tax years ago on those funds.
As for me a small business owner , I pay quarterly taxes, pay double on FICA though what I am taxed does not alter the Social Security I receive & are retaxed on the benefits above the threshold limit.
Somehow I do not feel like laughing. What is really galling is welfare slugs who play the system can collect freebes above the SS limit we are subject to additional taxation & pay “0” income tax of any kind on any dollar or benefit they receive.
Of course it is racist to point this out,but one has to wonder why so many Americans are willing to accept being boned up the ass as just payment for being willing to sacrifice & become successful & not object to welfare slugs who live a life style they never worked a day in their lives to earn.
Again, I wish I could laugh. My wife and I are both self-employed, and we homeschool to boot. Most of her clients are from Japan and pay her in yen. Since Obummah has been in the White House the yen has steadily dropped, and over the last six years her income has dropped 30%. Just a mere coincidence, I’m sure. (We all know what great “multiculturalists” the Japanese are.)
And then there’s health care. With the new high deductible we’re always paying in but never drawing the benefit unless there’s a catastrophic emergency. Meanwhile, other folks of our acquaintance are singing Obamacare’s praises because their costs have gone down and their eligibility and benefits have gone up. This is the textbook definition of “redistribution.”
And then there’s all the paperwork and bureaucracy. We have to employ a taxman who used to work for the IRS because my wife has foreign clientele.
The joke’s on us. There now is a very strong incentive for my wife and I to give up our dreams and earn $40,000 per year less so we can get off this spinning wheel and use The System like our friends and neighbors.
The bottom line is this: If you are self-employed you get no benefits, breaks, or subsidies and you have to earn almost 50% more than if you were working for an employer.
What is an SRF?
I believe it is “Snotty Rich Fuck” Denny once stated in his fine blog.
I believe it was Thereasa (the dumb one) that called him that first.
Actually it was Insane Jane who called me that as well as “Sanctimonious fucking asshole”. I am proud of both of those epithets.
Put your mouse on top of it and all will be revealed. I use the acronym tag to do that.
Some famous person, I do not remember who he was, stated that if every American was force to write a check to the government on april 15th of the amount of taxes they owed, there would be a bloody revolution in this land. At this point I am all for it. Do away with withholding and have everybody pay the full amount they owe on April 10th. No more refunds period. Have all elections local, state and national held one week later. I truly believe we would see change pretty quick in this nation. As for the IRS. Nothing but organized crime dressed up pretty. Other posters stated even better than I could. I agree with everything they have to say about the IRS. Would only add that we can include plenty of state agencies in that category as well.
I have more respect for the mafia than the IRS. At least they look you in the face when they shake you down instead of hiding behind a wall of anonymity and bureaucracy like the feds do. At the very least, the mafia has a soul.
def – It was prolly Neal Boortz, nationally syndicated talk show host `out of Atlanta who said that. He used to say it every April 15th. I also stole the “Ask your friends or coworkers how much they paid in taxes and they will reply ‘I didn’t have to pay anything, I got money back'” from him. He also advocated paying employees their full amount and then having them write a check to the company for the amount of their withholding for income taxes and FICA. He was a strong proponent of the Fair Tax. He even wrote a book about it. The Fair Tax would eliminate the IRS and all of their abuses. It’s ridiculous that our tax system is so fucked up that the average taxpayer has to hire someone to do his taxes. If you had a flat tax, rather than our progressive nightmare, it would be so easy. How much did you make? Send in 15% of it. Done. Tax all income the same. I just printed off my forms and worksheets from Turbo Tax and it is 31 pages (16 printed double sided). as an aside, it’s amazing that I have a laser printer that can do that that I only paid $110 for. I remember what a printer like that would have cost back in the late 70’s. I worked in the Mattel Division of IBM when they introduced the first ink spitter. It was the size of a copier. I don’t know what it cost, but it was astronomical. I saw a video where they filmed it in slow motion. Neat! Now you can buy a PC and a wireless laser printer for less than the cost of an IBM Selectric II typewriter back then. A Selectric II typewriter cost $1000 in 1975 dollars.
I had a run in with the IRS in the mid 80’s. I paid what I thought I owed and after 7 years, the IRS sent me a letter saying that I owed almost $6000.00 from interest & penalties cuz I underpaid my taxes by around $750.00. The bastards laid on it for years letting the fines pile up on purpose I’m sure. Whadya do but pay the gangsters? I wonder how many tax payers have had this same BS happen to them over the many years of their tyranny.