I don't know that I need to comment in more detail. But of course, I will. I'm so far beyond Pissed Off, I don't think Pissed Off could catch me in a race car.
One outrageous thing I learned while going through the ordeal is that child support payments are not deductible. I have to pay it with post-tax dollars. It's not insignificant, it’s over 20% of my gross income. And it goes tax free to my Ex. So what is it if not a reduction in my fargon income? It doesn’t even entitle me to claim both kids as deductions, so it’s not like being able to write off child support would be a doubled relief.
Even though I know, intellectually, that getting a refund isn't a good thing, that it's an interest free loan to an ungrateful country, getting a refund takes a ton of sting out of it.
I'm so used to getting a bit back, I mis-read the TaxCut screen. It has a little tab to show you where you stand so far, as you go through the questions. I saw the number, so I thought I was getting that back. Then I went in and did my business income expenses, and the number went down.
I'm like, how could my refund shrink from claiming deductions? That's when I saw the little gray word 'owe' under the number.
Without going into numbers or whatever, I just want to state that I think the Sixteenth Amendment is even worse than Eighteenth.
First off, it's immoral to tax income. You should only tax things that have a negative social cost. That diminishes the impact of those things and raises money to ameliorate the problems they cause. Plus, by raising the cost of an antisocial behavior, you reduce the behavior. Taxing cigarettes, for instance, makes perfect sense. Taxing income is criminal.
But beyond that, it's such a violation of your privacy. How much money I give to this charity or that, how much I pay in local and state taxes, how much I spend on office supplies for my freelance work, etc., these are all things I should be able to say, 'None of your damned business, fuck off' to. More significantly, what's more personal than how much money you make to begin with?
I'm pretty close to my brother, but I don't know what he earns. Come to think of it, I'm a little hazy on what the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster earns, and since it impacts my child support, it's even 'my business' to know it. Sure, some people will come right out and offer the information, and it's not something I've ever tried to hide particularly hard, but this is a choice they make. Some guy on a bar stool says, 'I made $142,000 last year,' that's voluntary. Or, 'I'm getting by on $16,000 with five kids.'
But Uncle Sam gets to know in intimate detail how much you earn and to a great extent how you spend that money, and your privacy be damned. The only privacy the Federal Government seems to respect anymore is the White House's ability to obscure their activities and unrestricted, absolutely secret abortions, even for girls too young to consent to sex in the first place.
I know, I'm seeding this post with inflammatory stuff. I'm feeling a little incendiary.
I'm not going to tell you how much I owe, because it's none of your damned business, but it's enough to make me turn infidel.
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