Tax Time and the United States Postal Service

[White Lion]

As usual I wait until the last day to mail my taxes in. This time I made an unintentional mistake...I forgot to buy stamps and had to go in the post office to buy stamps. In one of my infinite moments of wisdom, I decided to give the clerk my two envelopes to mail and told her to put stamos on them. She took the two envelopes and said you need more than stamps and proceeded to weigh them. BAM, .59 cents each, of course my tax returns are getting bigger and bigger with each passing year. Schedule C's, Schedule E's, I had the whole thing working.

Anyway, on another note if you haven't already, try Turbo Tax Deluxe. With this software program you can maximize your deductions. Any horror stories?

[Shaman]

What do you think about the tax protests (dubbed the "tea parties" by media)? It looks like yesterday's protest rallies reached all 50 states.

Personally, I don't object to paying taxes. I'd pay even more if I knew it would be spent wisely. I don't want my tax dollars spent on endless warmongering, corporate welfare, healthcare scams, and a bunch of ill-designed social programs. I think that's the key point of many (though not all) of these protestors: they object to how their tax dollars are being spent.

[Kenyatta]

I do have a problem with some of the tax increases. I am a cigar smoker. It one of my guilty pleasures that I try and make time for once a week or so. With the passes of the SCHIP bill a tax was levied on tobacco products in addition to what was already being paid. This latest increase will mean an additional .45 cents or so on each cigar or $10-$12 extra per box. I am all for paying my fair share of taxes and paying for the services that my government provides. However, this particular tax is clearly punitive. The administration has made no secret that in addition to funding SCHIP it is hoped that this tax will also deter people from continuing to smoke. You can not legislate good health or tax people into going along with public opinion that smoking should be removed from our culture. Furthermore its a violation of the Constitution to create a tax that penalizes or targets a particular group. Why wasn't SCHIP funded by other luxury or non essential purchases? Why stop at cigarettes and cigars? Why not that $4.00 coffee at Starbucks or will that be next? My girlfriend tells me I am over reacting. So I asked her what if they added an additional 10% tax on every pair of shoes she purchased (outside of a reason number of pairs....luxury pairs). Her opinion quickly changed.

I believe in low income children having access to health care. Lets make no mistake about that. However I believe their parents need to be held to a higher level of responsibility and do something more than just collect benefits paid for by the rest of the public. Again that sounds like a sweeping generalization and I understand that there are those that fall on bad times. Obviously we are talking about those people. We are talking about the people who treat working the system as the only job that they will ever hold. Then the rest of us get holding the bag.

[White Lion]

Kenyatta, I'm not a smoker so I guess I don't feel the same as you do. I smoked a cigar or two in my day but overall definitely something I could do without for the rest of my life. I'm surprised Shaman hasn't pounced on you about this, as in a previous thread he supports this tax wholeheartedly. Me personally, I think excessive taxation of any kind os wrong and yes SCHIP is wrong.

P.S. Please don't mess with my Starbucks, I would lose the will to live without my Grande' bold blend in the morning....LOL Yes I'm a coffee junkie, but only one cup each morning...period. Gives me the necessary kick in the ass to get things going!

[White Lion]

Although this thread was not about paying taxes, i will offer my two cents anyways. I am a non apologetic Republican who believes in less government and less taxation. The term "social programs" makes me ill, as does "paying my fair share". What exactly does that mean? I'm in favour of the flat tax once proposed by former presidential candidate Steven Forbes. Everyone across the board pay a 15% tax, those earning under $45,000.00 per annum, no federal tax at all. Of course this would wipe out an entire industry of theives AKA accountants and attorneys.

I also agree with my good Brother Kenyatta on those gaming the system. Welfare was designed to give those a hand up, not a hand out. We have generations of people living off of welfare.

[Shaman]

White Lion, you're right. I should have launched a new thread for this topic.

I do think most folks are peeved with welfare abuse, including abuse in both corporate welfare and individual welfare. And as for social programs, I like Kenyatta's specificity here: it's those who game the system who are the problem. Not those who actually need support. My mother has had three stent implants in her heart. She has diabetes and a host of other ailments. She takes no less than 16 pills each day and she relies on several seniors programs (like paratransit) for daily support. If it wasn't for social programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, she'd be up a creek without a paddle.

I used to work for Job Corps (a $1 billion social program), in Philly, and I can't tell you how many kids I pulled off the street and placed into job training, GED, counseling, and health programs. Frankly, I was one of those kids who needed social services (welfare payments, food stamps, etc) while growing up because of my mother's severe chronic health problems. In fact, my elementary school was loaded with special social programs because a large chunk of its students came from poor families like mine. But my sickly mother and schoolmates didn't game the system. Our family genuinely needed these social programs for survival--and I mean longterm survival. I spent my entire childhood on welfare (roughly 18 years), and now my youngest sister and I are educated, productive, responsible, tax-paying citizens who give back to our community.

From my experiencing working with low-income families in Philly, I'd say that for every parent who gamed the system there were at least a dozen parents (like my mother) who genuinely needed a full range of short-term and long-term social services, including Medicaid, food stamps, addiction counseling, rape counseling, literacy support, homeless support, utility-cutoff support, free health screenings and a host of other social resources.

And so I have no problem spending taxes on social programs because I've been there at both levels--as a long-term recipient and as a social service worker. But I certainly agree we need more rigorous checks & balances to stop the smaller percentage of folks who game the system. I want a system that is both prudent and compassionate. For me, compassion and wisdom are sound spiritual principles that the great teachers like Christ and Mohammed and Buddha exemplified so well. And I use these two principles to guide my sense of tax obligation. But that's just me.

Again, sorry for shifting the topic away from filing taxes. My bad.

[White Lion]

1) I believe it was I who used the term "gaming the system" of course paraphrasing Kenyatta's words. I maintain, welfare's original intent was to offer a hand up, not a hand out. You make excellent examples for those who were actually in need, but offer no real examples of those gaming the system which is a widespread problem. By the way, I question the figures you use for Lea School.

2) What was your experience like this year filing taxes, did you take advantage of e-file?

[Shaman]

(1) Roughly 90% of Lea students are deemed Title I socioeconomically disadvantaged. And if I'm not mistaken, Lea's Title I population is roughly 20-30% higher than it was in the 1960s and 70s. (It increased after we graduated in 1974 because of the influx of impoverished first generation Vietnamese families in the 19139 zip code). Nonetheless, since at least the early 1970s, Lea has disproportionately served Title I families and, to my knowledge, it has never lost its status as a predominately Title I school.

(2) Examples of a gamer: my wife and I. We lied on our daughter's government preschool application. We checked off the "disadvantaged" block so that our daughter could attend the neighborhood pre-K program which is down the street from our home. Otherwise, there's actually no pre-K program for middle-income families in Baltimore. You must either be poor or you must spend literally thousands of dollars for a private pre-K miles away from home. And so we gamed the system. (I'm a volunteer teacher at the school which eases my guilt a bit...LMAO!)

Another example of gamers: While working at Job Corps, I noticed that some parents, who were slightly above the income threshold for federal eligibility, underreported their income (and I helped them do it...LOL) so that they could get their child off the damn street corner.

Another example of gamers: My wife worked as a senior consultant for the NYC welfare department (the largest welfare agency in the nation). She designed data surveillance systems for monitoring program usage which consistently found that roughly 90% of welfare recipients were genuinely in need of services. This is fairly consistent with most auditing systems of welfare agencies. Indepedendt auditors and investigators typically put the gamer figure around 5-10%.

Another example of gamers: The corrupt HCA Corporation billed Medicare for untold billions of dollars in fake claims--the largest social program fraud case in US history. The Feds finally caught up with HCA and began the arduous process of recovering $1.7 billion in fraud.

I welcome other examples you may offer of gaming our social programs (either at the corporate level or at the individual level). Surely there are many. And I fully agree that it's a serious problem that calls for much greater accountability. I would fully support Obama calling for a crackdown on this kind of fraud in the same way that he called for a major crackdown on fraud perpetrated by the mortgage industry that's costing us taxpayers a pretty penny.

(3) I personally don't file taxes. I can't recall the last year that I did. My wife handles our taxes, accounting, travel arrangements, and other logistical stuff. I'd give her a raise but she already earns more than me...LMAO!

[White Lion]

I'm kind of a control freak, and I must do our taxes.

[Kenyatta]

I have just finished dinner and in honor of this conversation I am going to light up a cigar (a slightly more expensive one thanks to SCHIP). May my bad habit help as many people in actual need as possible!

[White Lion]

I used to like Acid cigars.

[Larry "A"]

I would reply but everything I would say has already been addressed! But I did file my taxes (actually waiting for my refund to be mailed tomorrow). I truly hate those that scam the system strictly because they are freakin' lazy, ignorant and just down right freakin' greedy! Thank GOD for the underground economy! As for the protesters, I really wonder how many were out there that also protested our tax dollars going to an unnecessary war (Iraq) or given to so-called allies to destroy other people's territory. Or are they protesting against a Black President? I don't normally thro race into the mix, but.....

[Popper]

Yea, have a horror story but not as you'd predict. I have an accountant which I pay roughly $200/yearly to file for me. Few more than a few years ago, out of the blue the IRS wrote me a letter and said I owe something like $10,000 dollars, and they wanted the cash like yesterday. Thing is that the letter was written in complete greek. I had no idea what it was saying other than the amount owed and that it past due. The wording was extremely technical, and no normal human being could understand a word of it.

I faxed the letter to my accountant. He e-mailed me a letter back. Again, his reply was written in total greek. However, it was polite as hell. It said something as (to really paraphrase) "Dear Kind Sir, are correct, but you made the following error in your calculation ... yadda yadda yadda ... ". Anyway, I had no idea what it said. As instructed, I signed it and mailed it to the IRS immediately.

At present, no reply, and after four or more years later I must assume that all OK. I have concluded in my own mind that spending the cash for an accountant is like a form of insurance. Insurance that the IRS will not write me some other letter ... like tomorrow ... falsely claiming that I owe them perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. IRS is vicious, greatly feared, and if they select you, you had better have a damn good accountant in your corner, or they may take everything you own.




--Popper