Montana Jones

Tax time

Me:

I'm getting screwed again on taxes this year.

L_:

Uh oh.

Me:

For all of Bush's tax cut hype he sure has done me no favors. I've gotten screwed the past several years. Of course that all started when I quit my job to go freelance.

L_:

The self employment tax.

Me:

Yup. This year I did okay with the fed but I am getting screwed by the state.

L_:

Oh yeah? I've seen that before.

Me:

My state taxes are twice as high as my payroll deductions were.

L_:

Ouch, that's not good.

Me:

I haven't filed yet. I double checked the math but I am still worried that I made a mistake somewhere. With all the steam coming out my ears I thought it best to cool off before I checked it again. I still have time to make sure it's right before I file.

L_:

That's a good idea, and make sure you itemize your deductions too. That will almost always get you a better deal than the standard deduction. Use your receipts and grab every little thing. I have seen the state of Montana take people for a lot at tax time.

Me:

Price we pay for not having a sales tax I guess.

L_:

Yup. Gets us better deal over all this way. Pay it all in one shot. Only do the accounting one time in one big lump and be done with it. Otherwise we would be farting around with accounting for every single little transaction every single day. Constantly having to deal with ledgers and tax codes and accountants. It gets expensive to do it that way.

Me:

Makes sense. For both us and the government.

L_:

And you still hear from these twerps in the government about how we should raise a tax this way and raise a tax that way and use a sales tax and on and on. Oh, it would be so wonderful and so simple and if we did it like this we could lower your other taxes. Well no one in this state buys that crap. And we know they wouldn't lower any taxes either, they would just screw us coming and going. No one here would vote in a sales tax unless there was a guarantee that other taxes would go down. None of this 'could' and 'might' and 'probably'. We need a guarantee or no one would vote for it.

Posted by: Montana Jones / 8:03 AM