Comments on: Tax day thoughts on complexity in American life

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:42:27 +0000

Bingo. And I’m guessing that you, being young and a student so far, have relatively simple affairs on top of your quasi-CPA background! It’s a scandal that anybody less equipped than you should be systemically unable to file his taxes correctly…

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:19:02 +0000

I took “personal income taxation”, a course for pre-CPA accountants, at my University, and it was the only textbook that I have ever bought for class. Even with a 3.5 in the course it took a new year’s resolution on top of $800 of incentives to put myself in category 1 .

By: Cheri

Cheri — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:20:56 +0000

You have convinced me.

I am not renewing my lease.

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:02:51 +0000

One day Cheri will roll her barrel up to a desert mountain top and prepare to enter it like Diogenes, only to hear somebody say ‘Psst, this is where my straw mat usually is.’
‘Who the f*** are you?’ Cheri will say.
‘Kluth, according to my tax return,’ says the dude in the loin cloth. ‘Now just some guy breathing for freedom. You can put your barrel over there.’

Marain: There are even simpler proposals out there (including one where there is no IRS at all!). I might review those here (although I have to make sure that the Hannibal Blog does not get too wonky.) But believe me that, as a long time expat, I know what you went through. have you even heard of the so-called “T-bar”?

By: marain

marain — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:21:41 +0000

I spent about six hours doing my taxes last weekend and I still got it wrong – there is a new caclculation required starting from 2006 for persons with Foreign Earned Income that I didn’t know about that effectively doubled the amount of tax I was required to pay. Fortunately for me, I was able to show my forms to someone at work who did know about it so that it could be corrected before I mailed everything to the IRS.

It’s truly insane that the tax code contains 5.5 million words. I can imagine that very few people are capable of understanding it all, let alone motivated to try. I think a lot of money could be saved by making taxation simpler – make it a standard rate for everyone of something reasonable, like 15%, and no loopholes for anyone. This would probably have the effect not only of increasing overall revenue, but also of reducing the number of IRS employees thus reducing this area of government spending.

I wholly support your two-page tax form idea, Andreas!!!

By: Cheri

Cheri — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:19:41 +0000

I understand this post at a feelings level.

The spiritual escape you allude to (even the type described by Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning in which we escape to our imagination where our captors may have no power) is one of the coping tools for those of us running small businesses. Like me.

Seems that most of the folks feeling comfortable with higher taxes are often those tucked comfortably in large governmental or corporate beds. Now there is nothing wrong with that choice…I opted for that way of life for 26 years. But in the liberal sense, I didn’t like other people telling me what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.

Those of us who carry (albeit by choice) the weight of small business expense resent paying even more taxes to the very government you discuss in this post.

Rent $6700.00 per mo.
Employees: $5000.00 (they are all part time)
Copy Machine: $350.00
Insurance: $300.00
Books/supplies/etc: $1000.00
Security/permits/etc: $200.00
IT: $300.00
Website: $500.00
Telephone,etc. $190.00

In short, I have chosen a work life where I call the shots (freedom) in exchange for bearing some burdens (taxes).

In economic terms, when the benefits exceed the costs, we like what we do.
In psychological terms, when the cost exceeds the benefit, we reevaluate.

The spiritual escape you have shared every now and then is familiar to most of us who deliver our briefcases of data to our accountants every year. The Number 2′s.

Breathe…go home and drink…breathe….meditate…go home and drink…and so on.