US$251 poorer

[mellowtigger]

I just paid my taxes electronically.  I didn't understand most of it and just clicked through the defaults on everything.  (No, I didn't pay alimony in 2010.  No, I didn't pay to have my livestock tested for something-or-other-disease.  No, I didn't participate in any complicated government fund where I pay money ahead of time and withdraw within limits for yadda, yadda, yadda.)

In addition to what's taken out of my paycheck throughout the year, I paid another $156 to the U.S. government, another $75 to the Minnesota state government, and $20 to TurboTax for filing all of my forms electronically to keep me from having to figure out addresses and stamps at a post office open at inconvenient times.

As long as it keeps bureaucrats away from me for another year, I suppose it's money well spent.

I half-remember a Republican who campaigned several years ago on the promise to make tax calculation forms fit on a postcard.  I wish.

Comments

[randomcub.livejournal.com]

A swedish friend of mine tells me that in Sweden there is no form. You get a letter from the government telling you what you owe. You pay it. Done.

[mellowtigger]

Socialists have all the nice toys. *sigh*

("There is a long tradition of using Sweden as a socialist model to highlight social shortcomings in the United States." - Christian Science Monitor)

More seriously, though, why can't we have a system like theirs? If the vast majority of the US$ is concentrated in the hands of 10% of the citizenship, then why not just tax "Where The Money Is" to pay for the government?

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Because the top 10% would rather NOT pay their fair share. Instead they prefer to hire lobbyists to influence the peoples' representatives, prefer to own the media and pay commercial artists and others to attempt to shape and at minimum influence popular opinion. Why these folks cannot pay and act directly perhaps relates to our natural repugnance in the United States to the broken feudalism of Middle Ages Europe.

And yes, i would vote Socialist-Democrat in a heart beat provided it was the real deal and not a Nationalist Socialist Party a la the infamous one in post WW I Germany that brought a certain madman to power. (Hint: names starting with the letter H)

[randomcub.livejournal.com]

One does wonder. They get ridiculous things like health care, unemployment, and such.

[bbearseviltwin.livejournal.com]

"I half-remember a Republican who campaigned several years ago on the promise to make tax calculation forms fit on a postcard."
It can be done here. It just takes a really really really really tiny font

[litch.livejournal.com]

Terry, you're one of the sweetest guys I know but learned helplessness like this is grossly unappealing.

D/l the PDF forms & instructions and fill them out, it takes a long afternoon and is only moderately frustrating (debuggin a couple hundred lines of code is harder). You save the fee and you have to figure out the same quirks that you do in turbotax.

I'm getting $1600 back from $1000 taxes i've paid, refundable tax credits rule. Of course I only made $9977 last year & got the making work pay ($400) and the earned income ($200) tax credits. I had thousands of dollars of deductions from tuition and the loss I took on my house that I never used.

Had to file a 1040a. Sch M, 8863, & an Oregon sch 40p. Much easier than the crap I had to do for self employed & owed money but made less than 5k last year.

[pi3832.livejournal.com]

http://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/ffh9s/ysk_in_addition_to_the_twentyone_states_listed_at/