Only in this case, the bill collector is Uncle Sam and little cousin Wilbur is the IRS.
Sometime during what's left of this long holiday weekend, I plan on doing my taxes and along the way, I plan on shedding quite a few tears as well. Those tears won't be shed because I'll be paying (haven't done that since the mid 90's) but because I lost a few tax deductions for the year.
Up until last year, I was able to use my son as a deduction, since he was still under 18. Now, because he's over 18 but not a full time student, he's no longer a tax deduction for me, but for himself. And for himself, he's getting a tax refund of about $25, which in my opinion, is very sucky tradeoff.
Also, the "Making America Work" tax deduction has vanished, which also sucks, and I'll tell you why.
For the past couple of years, I was able to claim this $800 deduction simply because I decided to start selling my self-pubbed books on my own. So in addition to claiming a few certain expenses (i.e. renting a postal box), I was able to claim this deduction as well. Now, because the representatives that we elected to represent us are not, this deduction (along with others) went bye-bye.
Feh.
The reason that I need to add a little rhythm to the squeal is that I'm doing something else this weekend that's making me squeal: a third round of edits for my novel.
Yes, just like doing my taxes makes me squeal, so does editing my novel. To drown out the squealing and help me concentrate, I've decided to play a few c.d.'s. And if you think that the music chosen matches up with the overall feel of the novel, you are sadly mistaken.
To whit:
Little Feat Let It Roll
Beastie Boys Ill Communication (although I can't seem to get past track 8)
Soundtrack to the movie The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
The Eagles On The Border
Train Drops Of Jupiter
The Offsping Americana
RATM The Battle of Los Angeles
Green Day Dookie
Live Throwing Copper
And since, to a certain degree that this post is about whining, I leave you with a favorite song about whining.
I love that Beastie Boys video.
ReplyDeleteLet the music take you to a happy place. Or at least let you know you're not alone :)
ReplyDeleteSarah Allen
(my creative writing blog)
Chris: It's one of favorite Beastie Boy videos as well.
ReplyDeleteThe ultimate whining song, in my humble opinion.
Sarah: It does indeed take me to my happy place, 'cause doing this stuff makes me think too much and takes me to the unhappy place. :D
I actually do enjoy editing to music, simply because it allows me to get a firmer grip on the annoyance factor.
I'll be able to claim my son for last year since he went back to school full time. I'm glad of that.
ReplyDeletepretty fly for a white guy!
ReplyDeletethe IRS is the devil. i never pay until the last day, and i usually have to pay. i never want the jokers in power to have my money any longer than needed...
ah, yes, the joys of taxes.
ReplyDeleteAnd the next time I am tempted to believe a government promise, I will look into the promise they made to remove the income tax at the conclusion of the war and see how that turned out.
lets see, when did World War I end again? Is it over yet?
ah yes...income tax, our "voluntary tax". Next time I am tempted to believe a promise...any promise...made by our government, I will see if they have ended this tax as they promised to do at the conclusion of World War I. Is it over yet?
ReplyDeleteCharles: I finished my federal taxes around 3 this afternoon, and thanks to my son turning 19 at the tail end of last year, my refund was about slashed in half.
ReplyDeleteHooray.
Bruce: Haven't had to pay the federal since the early 90's when my wife's job screwed up on her paycheck and took out no federal taxes for the entire year. That got me introduced to the wonderful world of the IRS installment plan.
Yippee.
Darth: Not sure if you meant to double post, but I allowed them both just to be on the safe side.
Ending income tax? My dear blogger friend, once the income tax gets activated, no matter on what levfel of guv'ment, it's here to stay.
The Democrats actually like it 'cause it allows them unfettered spending.
Republicans spend plenty of money, too. Congress itself is the problem, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteM: While that may be true to a certan extent, on the state level, it's more Democrats than Republicans.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, in my state, Democrats have controlled the General Assembly basically unchecked for the past 4 decades, so even if they wanted to blame the Republicans for this (quite often you had a Republican as Governor and the Democrats controlling the purse strings), you can't.
Which is why its so infuriating that our current Governor, who is a Democrat, is holding his own party blameless for putting the state 3 billion in the hole and causing Moody's to downgrade our credit rating.
I'm getting my taxes done tomorrow - a little nervous. :)
ReplyDeleteLynn: Hopefully not only will yours be easier and less confusing, but you'll get a super large refund as well. :D
ReplyDeleteMy husband has his own little business and so it takes him a whole week to do his taxes. He is in a very foul mood by the end of the week, make no mistake of it.
ReplyDeleteS.R.: I can completely sympathize.
ReplyDeleteBecause I decided to sell my self-published books on my own, it often takes me about an hour just to organize all of my documentation so that I can spend about five minutes filling out a schedule so that I can properly claim a business loss for the year.
I hope all that got done without too much pain-
ReplyDeleteI did my taxes online, barely get anything back, n had to pay to file. Haven't had any dependents in over a decade now- n no deductions. Also hope the story editing did better, n the tunes helped.
Snaggle: I never do my taxes online as I've seen too much grief when an error is made and it becomes a he said/she said situation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, even though I'm getting refunds on both levels, I still had to adjust my taxes for the upcoming year because I had too little taken out on the state side.
Editing went a lot better this time around. I tightened up a lot of pages and sliced out about 1K words. And the tunes definitely did help.
Actually finished up my editing with a little NRBQ on vinyl.