Up until last week, I was officially "undecided" along political lines. I am, however, officially decided when it comes to the income tax system in this country. The decision is that it's ridiculous, and puts an unnecessary burden on the low income people with regard to filing.
Every year my mother asks me to file her taxes for her. It's ridiculous on two fronts. (1) She's a Social Security recipient and earns less than $5,000 a year working part-time and (2) Her employer deducts both state and federal taxes from her paycheck.
This year, like all the rest, I had to file an income tax return for her, which refunds to her all the money she paid to both the state ($63) and our federal government ($185). Can someone tell me how that is an efficient way to operate?
I had to go to the New Jersey state web site and open up a statement, file a return and have them send a check to her. Then, I had to go to the federal site, which directed me to TurboTax's free e-file site, where I had to choose a user name, password and create an account - for what, exactly? What I got out of it was a 7-page federal return and a 4-page New Jersey state return. Somebody in Trenton and Washington, D.C. has to read them, order a check to be printed, have it put into an envelope and mailed to her. At state and federal wage and benefit rates, add up the cost to you (the taxpayer) and tell me if it is a losing proposition.
Don't bother, I'll tell you. Yes, it is.
The system is so screwed up that a person who earns less than poverty wages has to file a tax return because their government can't figure out a way to efficently tax their wage earners without making them file a return and wait 4 weeks for a check. We're not talking about people earning thousands of dollars a year - well, 4 thousand dollars, but not tens of thousands.
For all the nonsense going on in the presidential campaigns, I don't hear any of them talking about doing away with needless paperwork and needless time (mine in particular) spent filing needless tax returns over people who are earning less than a hundred dollars a week.
C'mon Hillary - Barack - can't one of you come up with a reasonable solution to this problem? I'm not going to bother asking the Republicans, because you're the ones mailing the checks.
3 comments:
Type '16th amendment' into Google and scroll down. The Income Tax Law is not a law!
We used to have a talk show here hosted by a guy named Irv Homer, who regularly took on the IRS. The 16th amendment was his reference.
Without looking it up, I think it was 1939 or thereabouts that the government just started collecting, and we just started paying, because fear is a great inducement. Not to mention prison.
I'm on the fence about filing.....but I probably will..wouldn't want to go to jail over it...I fall in your mother's category for now (minus the SS check). I don't make enough to freakin file come on! That and most of the time my employer doesn't take the taxes out. Hell they don't want to pay me either......
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