The Tax Man Cometh!

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Uncle Sam wants you(r money!)

For all you US residents don't forget that tax day is rapidly approaching. Deadline is April 17 this year.

There is a new simplified form this year, the 1040EZER. It only has two lines:

1) What was your income in 2006?
2) Send it in.

Failure to comply with this voluntary compliance tax will result in the 3 US soldiers who aren't in Iraq kicking down your front door and hauling you off to the torture chambers.

GOW

[Omega_Destroyer]

I have no need to file taxes, mainly because the only income I earned all year was $1.36 from stocks.

[Corribus]

I laugh at all the people who tear their hair out every year over taxes. I have a CPA do mine and they're always done, and done accurately, before March. Best 150 dollars I spend every year.

[Kristo]

H&R Block's TaxCut software is $19.99 or so. Two hours on a weekend and I'm done.

I have a CPA do mine and they're always done, and done accurately, before March. Best 150 dollars I spend every year.

I hope he's deducting that $150 for you.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I use H&R Block's Taxcut software too. As you say, it is cheap and can be done relatively quickly from home. You can import information from the previous year, so lots of information is prefilled.

Of course if your tax situation is complex it still may be beneficial to visit a CPA. When I owned a small business I had a CPA take care of all the paperwork and taxes because local, county, state, and federal laws affecting business are subject to change evey year and are therefore hard to keep track of.

GOW

[Caradoc]

Satan doesn't want you to know: the IRS redoes your taxes anyway. If you just send in the numbers, they will figure out what you have to pay.

[Kareeah Indaga]

Did mine over Spring Break. Used a webservice on the government site. Hate taxes; whoever thought it would be a good idea to make the whole mess so complex you needed a help book just to figure out how to do them?

[Omega_Destroyer]

Try sifting thruoght the Internal Revenue Code for a class.

[Silence]

I am happy to live in a country where the tax rate is independent of income (ca 20% no matter how much money you make) and all tax declatations can be done electronically.

At the time I did live in the US it was a pain. First I did not even understand whether I am an alien, resident alien or whatever terms there were. Then had to gather a lot of papers and find correct numbers to each cell and bla blah. The year I left US, of course I failed to properly fill in the documents. A few years later they got me through local tax office. Fortunately I did not have to pay anything due to the nature of my income and international agreements. Just had to write an explanation.

[Kalah]

I sent in my tax return a week ago (deadline is 30/4). I didn't have to change anything, just confirm the information the tax department had about me. Preliminary calculations show I will be getting about 17000 crowns (approx. $2760) back this year.

[Kristo]

Sounds like you had way too much tax withheld at your job (assuming your country does that). I try to adjust my withholdings so I get as close as possible to a $0 refund.

[Corribus]

Contrary to popular belief, getting a big refund is a bad thing. It is basically like storing your money in a non-interest bearing account for a year. (Although, it does feel like free money when you get that fat check. )

[Kalah]

Wrong. In Norway, you get the interest as well.

So what I am doing is in fact a good idea; I am over-estimating my yearly income on purpose, so that I know I will be getting money back; or more to the point: that I will not owe any money in back taxes.

[Corribus]

How much interest? I find it hard to believe that the APR provided by the government (although it's nice that they give you any at all) would be higher than what you could accomplish on your own by investing in stocks, CDs, high yield savings, etc., etc.

But regardless, I was referring mostly to people of my country, who act so happy when they get a big return check, not realizing that it's not -technically - a good thing.

[Kalah]

I think the interest you get is the interest level set by the Bank of Norway, which tends to guide the interest levels used by all the commercial banks. So it's pretty much the same as you would have gotten if you had put the money in a savings account.

Of course, for many people this isn't an advantage, and what they'd want is to get hold of the money as soon as possible. For me, I'll survive without it until the summer, at which point I'll be getting a bit of extra holiday cash.

[Corribus]

Well, regardless, it's a nice feature.

I do admit that there's something attractive about getting a big check in the mail from Uncle Sam, even if deep down I know it's money they already stole from me during the course of the year. Sort of like a "shopping spree" kind of feeling...

[Kalah]

This all reminds of the converation Donna has with Josh in a "West Wing" episode after it becomes clear they have a budget surplus...

Donna: "We have a 32 billion dollar surplus for the first time in three decades."
Josh: "Yes."
Donna: "Republicans in Congress want to use this money for tax relief right?"
Josh: "Yes."
Donna: "Essentially what they’re saying is, they wanna give back the money."
Josh: "Yes."
Donna: "Why don’t we wanna give back the money?"
Josh: " Because we’re Democrats."
Donna: "But it’s not the government’s money!"
Josh: "Sure it is. It’s right there in our bank account."
Donna: "That’s only because we collected more money than we ended up needing."
Josh: "Isn’t it great?"
Donna: "I want my money back."
Josh: "Sorry."
Donna: "What’s wrong with me getting my money back?"
Josh: "You won’t spend it right."
Donna: "What do you mean?"
Josh: "Let’s say your cut of the surplus is $700. I want to take your money, combine it with everyone else’s money and use it to pay down the debt and further endow social security. What do you want to do with it?"
Donna: "Buy a DVD player."
Josh: "See?"
Donna: "But my $700 is helping to employ the people who manufacture and sell DVD players, not to mention the people who manufacture and sell DVDs. It’s the natural evolution of the market economy."
Josh: "The problem is, the DVD player you buy might be made in Japan."
Donna: "I’ll buy an American one."
Josh: "We don’t trust you."
Donna: "Why not?"
Josh: "We’re Democrats."
Donna: "I want my money back!"
Josh: "You shouldn’t have voted for us."

[Corribus]

[Kalah]

Yeah, that show is full of stuff like this... particularly between these two. '

So, anybody else get anything back on their taxes?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I owed $126 this year. Last year I owed $121. I'd say I have my withholdings about right. I'd rather owe Uncle Sam a little at the end of the year than have him keep my money all year.

Our founding fathers who rebelled against a much smaller tax rate than what we pay would be turning over in their graves if they knew just how large a percentage of our income goes to all the various taxes that we pay to local, county, state, and federal governments.

GOW