My goal every year is to give Uncle Sam as little of my money as possible and the only way to do that accurately is to maximize every tax deduction possible. I filed online using TurboTax for the first time in 2001 and never looked back. Every year since I have filed online using TurboTax with no problems. In that time, I have had two errors in my filing, but they were a result of my own incompetence (and the ridiculous nature of our tax system), not because of Turbo Tax.

Because of TurboTax, I can access all of my tax records since 2001 online. TurboTax remembers my information from year to year and I do not even have to install software on my computer. The best thing about Turbo Tax is the way it figures your refund or tax deficit – it calculates the tax implications as you move through the filing process. You can see how much of a deduction you will get (or not get) for all of your financial decisions throughout the year. You can also begin to file. leave it and then come back to it in the future. Take as long as you like – nothing is final until you send your file to the Internal Revenue Service.

Happy Tax Season!  :choke:

From Wikipedia, a tax haven is a place (usually a country) where certain taxes are levied at a low rate or not at all. It is commonly stated that our government has a difficult time exactly defining a tax haven, but usually tax havens have some or all of the following:

• no or nominal taxes;
• lack of effective exchange of tax information with foreign tax authorities
• lack of transparency in the operation of legislative, legal or administrative provisions
• no requirement for a substantive local presence;
• self-promotion as an offshore financial center

Liberals believe that your income belongs to the government first and then you can have a little . . . if you are good. That is why the Obama administration is now setting its sites on companies who shield income from the IRS by claiming it in other countries. Our government thinks it can collect an additional $200 billion in tax revenue by stricter enforcement of existing tax code and by going after companies who use tax havens.

But I have a better idea.

Why not just make the United States of America into a country where businesses want to come? Why not use our tax code to encourage corporations from other countries to relocate here in the USA in order to take advantage of our lenient tax code? Instead of bending over backwards to funnel money to Switzerland or through the Cayman Islands, companies could do business here in the United States and pay taxes like normal. Mr. Obama would not have to hire 800 more IRS agents and fewer citizens would be forced to collect unemployment benefits.

Just think of all the jobs and new tax payers such a plan would create! More businesses, more jobs, more employment . . . what is the down side?

Maybe President Obama has already thought of this – lately the best way to shelter income from the IRS is to become a member of his administrative cabinet.

Photo by: nattu

But I am not sure that the events of tomorrow will have the same effect as the first Boston Tea Party.

I certainly sympathize with the goals of the tax tea parties that will be happening all over the United States tomorrow. However, I will not attend – primarily because I am duly employed, but also because I am not a big civil disobedience-type protester. I prefer to make my government protests here on this blog.

I would argue that  Texas Governor Rick Perry, who also happens to be my latest favorite politician, made a statement this week that will last longer than the Tax Tea Parties of April 15, 2009.

Our federal government has become a huge monster that cannot be satisfied. The more we feed it, the more it takes from us. President Abraham Lincoln steadfastly refused to allow slavery divide the United States of America and rightly so. How ironic would it be if just as we reach the best possible resolution of the Civil War: the election of an African-American president, we again find our Union shattered?

Only this time, the defining issues are taxes, spending, and an oppressive federal bureaucracy.

I read a theory once that stated if a certain percentage of the population starts to break a particular law, then that law can no longer be enforced. I don’t recall the exact percentage, but I would make an educated guess that it lies somewhere between five and fifteen percent. It really would not take much more than that to plunge us into anarchy. If ten or twenty percent of the population decided to run every stoplight, shoplift every time they were in a store or shoot animals in their backyard, our law enforcement officials would be helpless to enforce the law.

Civil society depends on willing subjection to the law by the majority of the populace. Cheating on taxes has been around for years, but I believe that we are about to enter a period where even the most honest among us are going to look at each other and ask, “So why exactly am I filing taxes again?” Here are the reasons why the United States is close to tax law anarchy:

Sheer number

Just look at the number of taxes that we pay! Not the amount, but the constant drip, drip of taxes here, there and everywhere is becoming a gradual pounding like Chinese water torture. Gas tax, water tax, property tax, car tax, sales tax, toll tax, communications tax, transportation tax, social security tax, income tax, Medicare/Medicaid tax, export tax, import tax, luxury tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and those are just the taxes off the top of my head. The frustration level of the citizens of this democratic republic is reaching a critical point. One of the seminal moments of American history involved taxes – remember “no taxation without representation” and the Boston Tea Party? The last government that tried to tax Americans unfairly ended up sailing back across the Atlantic Ocean with its tail between it’s legs.

Amount

United States tax receipts are currently close to 30% of our Gross Domestic Product. Take a minute to total up the amount of money you send to Washington D.C. or your state capitol annually. Include all of the above taxes in your total. Then imagine if you were a high wage earner (maybe you are). The rich have more money confiscated by the government than anybody else and they are the people doing the most employing and non-profit donating on top of their taxes. Eventually, they will move all of their assets out of this country or just quit paying taxes period.

Government Waste

No person or company wastes money quite like our federal government. All of you can readily access examples of government waste. The government spends money on things like STD prevention and pays farmers not to grow crops. Seriously, what successful company invests in something like public school education or Amtrak, finds out that neither endeavor balances the books or produces a decent product, and then decides to give both entities more money?! Taxpayers are sick of paying for failing schools, trains they don’t want, a retirement program that is bankrupt and research into the greatest hoax ever invented: man-made global warming. Furthermore, the American Recovery and Investment Act is not merely the straw that broke the camel’s back, but rather the 600 pound gorilla.

Complexity of the Tax Code

Need I say more?

Obama’s Cabinet

At least four of President Obama’s cabinet nominees are accompanied by tax problems. Several have taken their names out of the running, but the stench remains. Furthermore, several of them did not pay the back taxes until confronted with the problem. Tim Geitner, our new Treasury Secretary did not pay all that he owed when audited, just the amount that was still within the statute of limitations – until he was nominated for a dream job, then he quickly paid up.

The Rangel Rule

We also have a United States Representative who committed tax fraud. Charlie Rangel (chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, no less!) “forgot” to pay taxes on rental property that he owns in the Caribbean. He has since paid the back taxes, however he did so without penalty or fee. As of this writing, he faces no investigation or criminal charges.  In a recent op-ed in the New York Post, Congressman John Carter proposes a new law called the “Rangel Rule”. This law would allow tax payers who are caught in a misstep to pay the tax owed, but without penalty or interest.

And now we see the beginning of the end.

Obviously, if the law proposed by Congressman Carter is passed, we are going to see a huge increase in tax cheating. The primary deterrent to cheating on one’s taxes is not an audit (although audits are not fun), but rather it is the penalty and interest charged if a mistake is found. Imagine if 50 or 60 percent of tax returns contained major errors and/or just plain fraud. First of all, the IRS could never keep up with the investigations. There is already little chance of getting caught . . . and now we might have a situation where no apprehended offenders are punished.

But it won’t stop there. Once conscientious tax payers realize that over half of the American population is blatantly flouting tax law, they will also cross over to the dark side. Even IRS agents will start to ask themselves, “So, why am I paying taxes, again?” That is if they are currently paying anyway . . .

Our tax base is already close the precipice of simply saying, “I’m not going to pay”. Employing known tax cheats at the highest levels of our government could push everything over the edge.

Picture credit: bostonist

Here are some of my comments and opinions:

1. My family and I will qualify for the maximum amount.
2. Find out if you qualify at Consumerism Commentary.
3. The stimulus comes at a good time for my family, we might be paying rent and a house payment for the next few months.
4. I wonder why liberals all of a sudden believe that it is a good idea for people to have money to spend, yet they typically prefer taking money in the form of taxes? Why did the money have to be cycled through the federal government?
5. The stimulus will do very little to help the economy in any meaningful way.
6. Why didn’t they just cut taxes worth $168 billion?
7. I would prefer that the 2003 tax cuts were made permanent. This would stimulate the economy for the long term – even though it might cost me $1,500 in the short-term.
8. If our government has $168 billion to give away, I wonder how much more money they have that they don’t really need?
9. If our government has $168 billion to give away, why did they take it in the first place?
10. This plan is really just a wealth redistribution scheme. The people who are going to receive “rebates” are not the ones who earned the money in the first place.

I would rather see taxes cut for employers and corporations. This plan will buy a lot of votes for a lot of Congressmen.

I’m happy for them.