It’s that time of year again. I filed both my state and local taxes over a month ago. Today I mail the checks. Two checks go to the feds. One is my quarterly estimated tax and the other is what I owe for 2014. I always make sure I underpay my estimated taxes. No sense in giving the gummint an interest free loan. I got money back from the state and that covers the rest of my 2014 taxes.
Back when Neal Boortz was still on the air he always told his listeners to try this little experiment. Ask your friends and coworkers how much money they paid in taxes. He said that most of them would say, “I didn’t pay anything. I got money back.” Because of withholding the average (or under average)American doesn’t know how much he/she pays in taxes. Withholding is one of the biggest scams in the world, right up there with Social Security, man-made global warming, and organized religion. If every taxpayer had to pay his taxes once or four times a year, the tax code would be changed really quick or many politicians would be out of their cushy jobs.
I would love to see everyone having to pay all of their taxes the day before election day.
Yannow what would also be neat? When you got your paycheck you would have to stop at four windows. The first window would be your entire paycheck. At the next window, you would have to write a check to the gummint or pay in cash for your Social Security and Medicare. At the next window, you would have to write a check or pay in cash for your federal tax. At the last window, you would have to write a check or pay in cash for your state tax. And optionally, if you live or work in a city like St. Louis, you would have to write a check or pay in cash for your city earnings tax (1% back in the 70′s and 80′s. Don’t know what it is now.). That always pissed me off about St. Louis. If you worked in the city but lived in the suburbs, like I did when I started at IBM and worked downtown but lived in the suburbs, you had to pay a city earnings tax. On the other hand, if you worked in the suburbs and lived in the city, like I did for five years when I owned my four family flat in South St. Louis but worked at McDonnell Douglas outside of the city, you had to pay the city earnings tax. Bah!
Anyway, if the worker had to see how much he/she was actually paying in taxes there would be some major league changes, but withholding masks the tax bill, especially since the gummint usually withholds more than the actual tax bill so people get a refund which they think is money from the gummint not their own money that the gummint borrowed and didn’t pay interest on. Essentially, they’re being bribed with their own money. And don’t even get me started on tax preparers giving them loans so they can get their refunds early. Geeeez! There are a lot of stupid people in this country, yannow, like the people targeted by that stupid I got my title back with Title Max commercial. No doofus, you’re prolly gonna lose your car.
As soon as my hair dries, I’m off to the post office to mail my tax money and go to the store. Wednesday is 5% off for seniors at Kroger. That’s the upside. The downside is that all the geezers have handicapped permits and get to park in the crip spaces so it’s hard finding a decent parking space on Wednesday.