Can you make any more donations to charity before the end of the year? Is there anything you can do to push some of this year’s earnings into next year’s taxes? Oops, you may be better off pushing next year’s earnings into this year thanks to potential changes in tax law. Don’t forget that you may want to sell a few losing stocks to get that deduction. You have until April to contribute to your IRA, or do you? Call the IRS help line then flip a coin to decide if their answer is correct.
As the holidays approach so does your final opportunity to limit your tax liability for 2009. If you are among the nation’s most wealthy (as are most members of Congress and our President) you have experts that are up to date with tax codes and your financial situation and can therefore get the best deal for you. The cost of paying those people does not affect your life because you have plenty of money, so you really don’t notice. However, if you’re like the rest of us, you are either going to take a best guess on how to handle the crazy things that have happened to your money this year, spend hours doing research, or you are going to pay an advisor an exorbitant fee and hope they are giving you quality advice. If you are a small business or lost your job during the year these costs are even more painful.
In addition to the costs, there is the time you will spend gathering your records, filling out forms, making your list of deductions, checking it twice, and still risking an audit.
In all of this what I still fail to understand is how either political party – those politicians that are supposed to be looking out for the little guy and those other politicians that claim to support a strong economy – can make any claims to be helping anybody without first vowing to simplify our tax laws. Taxes should raise the necessary revenue for government operations, but we have developed a convoluted colossus of laws allegedly created as incentives for positive behaviors. Behaviors that were deemed positive by a political class that exempts itself from many of the laws it foists on us while benefiting financially and in votes by creating tax law that grants favors to voters and donors.
Note: I wonder how many of these tax laws produce negative behaviors and if the negative behaviors have increased as a result of the changes to our economic structure over this past year and a half?
The stagnant job market should have pushed politicians to simplify and cut taxes. Instead, they are busy looking for new ways to raise revenue through surcharges and other complex issues. This is nonsense.
It is time for Americans to demand a fair hearing for the Fair Tax, Flat Tax, and other tax simplification programs. Without bipartisan demands from We the People, the political class will never fix our tax system because a fix goes against their best interests. We pay and they profit.
How many Americans are out of work this holiday season because politicians are more interested in maintaining this tax mess status quo? Fa la la la that.
{ 2 comments }
Just wait…2010 is when the Bush tax cuts expire. Obama said many things during 2008 about these, including “The Bush tax cuts – people didn’t need them, and they weren’t even asking for them, and that’s why they need to be less, so that we can pay for universal health care and other initiatives”.
Many people believe as a fact that only the rich got tax cuts under the former president. Most every American got some sort of tax relief in the Bush tax cuts.
Of course, there’s lots and lots of talk about what’s what, and how to pay for the legislation that’s in the works, as well as all the pork that somehow never goes away.
So, this Festivus season, I’m going to buy a slimmer wallet.
If I actually made any money, I’d wory about it…But alas…Falalalalala