2019 by the numbers

[mellowtigger]

It's the time of year for taxes again, so I'm adding to my previous numbers. It seems like this tax filing process gets ever more confusing and burdensome each year. Garbage like this is a very good incentive to stop being a homeowner.

Year	GrossIncomeUS$	Change	FederalTaxUS$	TaxChange	CreditScore
2016	30,500		2,384
2017	33,800	+11%	3,048	+28%	720
2018	36,600	+8%	3,938	+29%	723
2019	37,451	+2%	2,839	-28%	730

The credit score is still a useless figure.  As usual, they deduct severely for having only a single debt: my house mortgage.  Somehow, TurboTax knows that I have a current balance of $43.1K on that debt.  Why do we even bother filling out tax forms?  Can't the government just send us the form telling us what our tax balance is, then let us file our own forms only if we want to challenge their estimation?  That process would be a lot less cumbersome.

At least there's a dramatic reduction in federal taxes this time.  Does that always happen during election years?

A much better statistic, though, is my consumer footprint.  Thankfully, I recorded the mileage (94.1Kmi) on the car when I bought it in 2013, so I can easily compare it to now (128.3Kmi) for total mileage (34.2Kmi).  Over 80 months, that comes to an average total distance that I drive each month as 428 miles.  According to one website, the average Minnesotan in 2014 drove 891 miles per month.  I am far below average, and that's a good thing.

I disapprove of shipping human bodies back and forth.  Commuting (especially as a single-occupant-vehicle) is a terrible idea.  I'm glad I've got such a low planetary burden on this measure.  That's a little good news, I guess.

The median US employee earns about $48,672/year ($935/week).  So I'm doing really well as a part-time worker.  That's very good news.

Comments

[foeclan]

Measuring in kilomiles is breaking my brain. :)

[mellowtigger]

The USA simply must convert to metric at some point. I always put Celsius temps first, so that equivalency is easy for me to follow now. Kilomiles seems a good example of our modern absurd position. :)

[mllesatine]

I had an income of 33.800 € in 2018 and paid more than 4000 € in federal taxes. *shrug*
And I deducted a lot because I drove 72 km every day (only one half of my commute counts in German tax law, so 36 km).

I think you drove 30 km per work day (If I average 22 work days a months) which really isn't a lot.

Is your credit score estimated with your tax? How does it affect your life?

[mellowtigger]

Credit score is not supposed to have anything to do with income taxes, no. But it does, because we have privatized/commoditized everything, including filing our taxes.

A few decades ago, I would go to the Post Office to pick up "free" paper forms for doing my taxes and mailing them in. No such forms are printed any more. You can file online (which I do), but not with the help of government's Internal Revenue Service. Instead, private companies host their own webpages that walk you through government forms, and you pay that private company for the privilege. Meanwhile, in between questions, they advertise more products to you while you fulfill your obligation to the government.

It's obscene, really, how low the USA has fallen while singing the virtues of corporations.

So I pay money to private companies to do what I previously could do "for free" (my tax money printed those forms in the post office), and government no longer has any incentive to improve the service. And they try to sell me more services, like the stupid credit rating.

[mllesatine]

So you paid to know your credit score?

The thing about seeing ads inbetween doing forms is totally bananas. So a private company knows your taxes? Holy fuck. And of course if the company was selling you some type of software for your taxes or the services of an accountant it would make sense to make the forms slightly different or more confusing every year. You are not supposed to get better at them with practice.

[mellowtigger]

No, I didn't pay extra for that. They gave it to me, unasked, with my tax preparation process online. :/ They hope to impress you with all they know about you, hoping that you'll buy the extra services to learn how to improve that score (which I've said for years is an inaccurate way to measure risk).

Yes, the whole thing is just... wrong.

[foeclan]

Oh, and Intuit is why the government can't just send you a form. Unsurprisingly, corporate greed and lobbying has been blocking that for nearly 20 years.

[mellowtigger]

Agreed. They created quite a nice racket for themselves.

And this morning I saw a WSJ article about "starting out" living on $50K/year in wages. They include Minneapolis. I'm pretty sure that most young people do not start out at $50K/year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/five-cities-living-on-50k-a-year-11568296902?st=tj81xr5occgdgn5&mod=pkt_ff