Federal Tax Return

[Iago 8]

2 hours ago, kallend said:

We have the BEST GOVERNMENT money can buy.

Yep, it was a government of the many.  Now it's a government of the money.  But it's the BEST government money can buy.

That was a something Bob Brinker used to say on his radio show.  Too bad I can't get him on podcast anymore.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Iago

[Iago 8]

16 hours ago, billvon said:

That would tend to reduce Trump's support - so I don't think you will see any work in that direction for a few years.

Well, considering there never was any real work done in that direction I'd say you're right.  "Home Ec" (modernized for the modern age) should be required.  This is a Budget.  Here's how you balance an account so you don't bounce your debit swipes all the time.  Here's how paychecks, taxes, and withholdings work.  Even in the late 80s that wasn't taught on a general level in school.

[gowlerk 1,901]

1 hour ago, Iago said:

Even in the late 80s that wasn't taught on a general level in school.

Or the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Instead they taught math. And problem solving. Those should be more than enough tools for the task. Probably by grade six.

[Iago 8]

8 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Or the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Instead they taught math. And problem solving. Those should be more than enough tools for the task. Probably by grade six

Yeah, you would think so.  Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work that way in reality.  I expectations make $45k this year.  I will owe 45*X%.  I have Y taken out every week.  I will owe/receive Z at the end of the year.  It's not hard, but I continue hearing a lot of gnashing of teeth in the media sob stories.

[gowlerk 1,901]

13 minutes ago, Iago said:

Yeah, you would think so.  Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work that way in reality.  I expectations make $45k this year.  I will owe 45*X%.  I have Y taken out every week.  I will owe/receive Z at the end of the year.  It's not hard, but I continue hearing a lot of gnashing of teeth in the media sob stories.

That's not poor budgeting. That's years of being trained that tax deducted at source will cover you. You would need far more than Home Ec to avoid that problem. Even tax professionals are struggling with new rules. Changing the deduction structure in a way that favours some over others, and then sending out tax deduction tables to companies designed to make people have slightly larger pay cheques is what lead to the current outcry.

[Iago 8]

7 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

That's not poor budgeting. That's years of being trained that tax deducted at source will cover you. You would need far more than Home Ec to avoid that problem. Even tax professionals are struggling with new rules. Changing the deduction structure in a way that favours some over others, and then sending out tax deduction tables to companies designed to make people have slightly larger pay cheques is what lead to the current outcry.

Well, I was just picking that one.  I know plenty of people that still overdraw accounts and what not.  Years ago I remember reading a USA Today article about bank overdraft fees with debit cards.  The individuals profiled were, of course, not the type you would be inclined to extend empathy for their situation.  Swipe, swipe, swipe, ding, ding, ding month after month after month.  

 

Now, you would think that after getting hit once or maybe twice you’d figure this out. Nope.  Strange thing is I mentioned that to my coworker at breakfast and he took the opinion that it’s the banks fault for not teaching this stuff to people bouncing their account.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Iago

[gowlerk 1,901]

30 minutes ago, Iago said:

Strange thing is I mentioned that to my coworker at breakfast and he took the opinion that it’s the banks fault for not teaching this stuff to people bouncing their account. 

Now that's funny. What do does he think the service fees are if not an education? The truth is that a certain percentage of people try to live beyond their means. Some of them are fairly well off. At least for a while. Then there are those who can afford to live well, but fail to save for a rainy day. And with the way the healthcare system works in the US, a rainy day is sure to come sooner or later. Once people get used to a certain way of living they often have a very hard time cutting expenses till they are forced to.

[Coreece 189]

6 hours ago, Iago said:

I have Y taken out every week.  I will owe/receive Z at the end of the year.  It's not hard, but I continue hearing a lot of gnashing of teeth in the media sob stories.

And rightly so.  I have no taxes taken out except SS and medicare, and at the end of the year I end up owing thousands of dollars, those damn sons of bitches!

[Coreece 189]

12 hours ago, billvon said:

But the AVERAGE person is paying more.

...and that's really the bottom line.  Is the average/middle class person actually paying more overall?  Are they paying the same?  Are they paying less, but owing more in April?  I don't know.

[Coreece 189]

Where's the delete button?

Edited February 11, 2019 by Coreece

[kallend 1,619]

13 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Or the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Instead they taught math. And problem solving. Those should be more than enough tools for the task. Probably by grade six.

"But problem solving is HARD! Thinking is HARD!  Just tell me what to do". 

[Phil1111 905]

3 hours ago, kallend said:

"But problem solving is HARD! Thinking is HARD!  Just tell me what to do". 

That way I can go back to FB,  omit research and the whole philosophical conundrum of grey areas.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Phil1111

[billvon 2,379]

18 hours ago, Iago said:

Yeah, you would think so.  Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work that way in reality.  I expectations make $45k this year.  I will owe 45*X%.  I have Y taken out every week.  I will owe/receive Z at the end of the year.  It's not hard, but I continue hearing a lot of gnashing of teeth in the media sob stories.

Right.  This year it's just catching some people unawares because they will owe (salary*(X+N)%) instead of (salary*(X-N)%) as they were told would happen.  By next year they will better understand Trump's tax increases and there won't be as much trouble.

[billvon 2,379]

17 hours ago, Coreece said:

...and that's really the bottom line.  Is the average/middle class person actually paying more overall?  Are they paying the same?  Are they paying less, but owing more in April?  I don't know.

Lower tax refunds might hurt the economy

CNN Jordan Valinsky

Consumer confidence is already low and there's another sign it might be dinged again: Lower tax refunds.

The IRS said the average refund is down roughly 8%. Refunds for the first full year of the overhauled tax code averaged $1,865 compared to $2,035 for tax year 2017.

If Americans are getting less money back, that might mean they're going to spend less of their refund.

===========================

[SkyDekker 1,120]

22 hours ago, Iago said:

Yeah, you would think so.  Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work that way in reality.  I expectations make $45k this year.  I will owe 45*X%.  I have Y taken out every week.  I will owe/receive Z at the end of the year.  It's not hard, but I continue hearing a lot of gnashing of teeth in the media sob stories.

True, but if the masses find out about tax brackets and that higher income tax works on incremental increases then fear based arguments won't work so much. Right now the Republicans feed on the crowd who think that a wage increase pushing them into a higher tax bracket will lead to lower take home pay.

Next thing you know is they figure out that 70% on income over $10,000,000 doesn't mean 70% on all income and that wouldn't be very helpful.

[TriGirl 268]

Don't forget the tax brackets were consolidated, resulting in fewer brackets.  I actually ended up in a higher tax bracket once the consolidation was done, so I adjusted my withholding to ensure I don't end up owing money this year (or my best estimation).

[billvon 2,379]

1 hour ago, TriGirl said:

Don't forget the tax brackets were consolidated, resulting in fewer brackets.  I actually ended up in a higher tax bracket once the consolidation was done, so I adjusted my withholding to ensure I don't end up owing money this year (or my best estimation).

Yep.  A lot of people assumed that since the talking points included the words "tax cut" they'd be paying less taxes.  Unfortunately:

1) Most of the tax cuts were for the wealthy

2) Many of the middle class tax cut (like the home office deduction and mortgage interest deductions) were reduced or eliminated and

3) To make the tax cuts seem larger, Trump and Ryan pressured the IRS to reduce average withholdings.

As a result, a lot of people who believed they were getting a tax cut and resulting refund are getting an unpleasant suprise. 

(Fun fact - when a watchdog agency warned the treasury department about the potential under-withholding problems, treasury secrertary Steven Mnuchin called the claim "ridiculous.")

[billvon 2,379]

Good article from The Week:

=====================================

The Republican tax cut is the gift that keeps on giving ... to Democrats.

The 2017 law was supposed to boost workers' wages, create jobs, and drive more investment — and as we've known for awhile, it's done none of that. But now we can add two more failures to the creatively-named Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA): It hasn't encouraged corporations to return their profits from overseas, and it's probably hiding a nasty surprise for many Americans come tax season.

Let's start with the second idea. Lots of Americans work for an employer who sends them regular paychecks. Those employers rely on tables published by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to guesstimate how much their employees owe in taxes each year. Then they withhold the necessary increments from each paycheck. Come tax season, every worker settles up with the government. If their employer withheld too little, they pay the remainder. If the employer withheld too much, they get a refund from the IRS. As Matt Yglesias pointed out, the system has traditionally overdone withholding on purpose — roughly three-fourths of tax filers usually get a refund.

But the TCJA rejiggered a ton of deductions in the tax code. Updating the tables accordingly fell to the Treasury Department and the IRS, even though the latter is also dealing with staff reductions, shutdowns and budget cuts.

Tax day isn't until April, but the average refund is already down more than 8 percent compared to last year. Anecdotal evidence is also rolling in that people who expected refunds are getting hit with extra tax bills instead. An intrepid Twitter user even compiled a collection of Trump supporters doing their taxes and discovering, to their horror, that their year-end tax bill went up.

At a minimum, the agencies were given a pressing logistical task they had too little time or resources to handle. But David Dayen also pointed to evidence the Trump administration actively pressured Treasury and the IRS to undershoot withholding estimates. In January 2018, Politico reported that the IRS was "under pressure to take as little as possible so people will see big increases in their take-home pay," and annoyed Democratic senators were looking into the matter. The Congressional Budget Office also expects withholding to be unusually low this year.

If the White House did this, the point was to boost paychecks in the immediate aftermath of the TCJA's passage, so Trump and the Republicans would get political credit in the run-up to the 2018 midterms. "You're going to start seeing a lot more money in your paycheck," Trump crowed in a speech shortly after signing the bill.

=========================================

https://theweek.com/articles/822464/gops-tax-cut-just-keeps-getting-worse

[Phil1111 905]

Debt surpasses $22 trillion for first time

The gross national debt has surpassed $22 trillion for the first time in the U.S. history, according to Treasury data released on Tuesday. ...

“As we borrow trillion after trillion, interest costs will weigh on our economy and make it harder to fund important investments for our future. We already pay an average of $1 billion every day in interest on the debt, and will spend a staggering $7 trillion in interest costs over the next decade,” he added.

CBO projected that the costs of servicing the debt will surpass defense spending by 2025."

Mis amigos, unfortunately senior trump has misled you. The tequila will run out soon, the party will be over. Till then fiesta dura!

[Coreece 189]

On 2/11/2019 at 1:34 PM, billvon said:

Lower tax refunds might hurt the economy

CNN Jordan Valinsky

Consumer confidence is already low and there's another sign it might be dinged again: Lower tax refunds

If Americans are getting less money back, that might mean they're going to spend less of their refund.

That thought crossed my mind as well.  Would it really hurt the economy tho, or just certain businesses?  If people are getting more money in their paychecks due to lower withholding, they might be likely to spend more on restaurants, groceries, gas, coffee or any other daily expenses rather than one major purchases in April.  More and more people seem to plan on saving it or paying off debt.

 

On 2/11/2019 at 1:34 PM, billvon said:

The IRS said the average refund is down roughly 8%. Refunds for the first full year of the overhauled tax code averaged $1,865 compared to $2,035 for tax year 2017.

Ok, so instead of buying a 75" 4k smart TV,  you get a  70" 4k standard TV and a Roku Express.

 

[billvon 2,379]

2 hours ago, Coreece said:

That thought crossed my mind as well.  Would it really hurt the economy tho, or just certain businesses? 

If it's a small decrease, it will hurt the economy a little.  And it will affect some businesses more than others, of course.

Quote

Ok, so instead of buying a 75" 4k smart TV,  you get a  70" 4k standard TV and a Roku Express.

Or put off getting your brakes fixed for another six months.  Not everyone is as rich as you portray above.

[kallend 1,619]

Meanwhile the US national debt just passed $22 TRILLION.

[gowlerk 1,901]

8 hours ago, kallend said:

Meanwhile the US national debt just passed $22 TRILLION.

Only slightly more responsible than the Venezuelan government. America, spending like a drunken socialist sailor. On credit from China.

[BillyVance 34]

Just saying. The Obama's, Clinton's, Pelosi, Waters, Feinstein, etc... 

[SkyDekker 1,120]

Smart person would remember Hillary Clinton did release her tax return. Obama released his tax returns.

A smart person wouldn't get his information from a meme.