Re: Big Push for Guest Worker Program
- From: Rumpelstiltskin <PleaseDoNotReplyByEmail@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:23:08 GMT
On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:31:53 -0600, Glenn <minorgo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:58:34 +0000, Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
Needless to say, I haven't even started doing my taxes
yet. I really should do them early, because the dismal prospect of
doing them preys on me until I've done them. I'd love to completely
replace income tax with embedded consumption tax, but only if completely
so that I wouldn't every have to do taxes again. It's the ugliest job
of most years for me.
The longer the wait, the more mistakes. I start in early February
collecting all the forms and data. By early March I have a preliminary
cut and wait a week or two checking a couple more times, making sure that
everything is correct. I download the forms, but any needed publication
that didn't come in the mail is read on line. Federal forms are
updateable, so one can complete as much as you want when you want. I
calculated the minimum necessary quarterly estimated payments for 06 and
paid that total at the same time as what I still owed for 05. I target
3/15 to send in the checks so that I can make sure they are cashed by
4/15. When they all clear, I forget about it until next February. This is
a poor strategy for the young, but for the old, with our poor memory, it
appears to be the most foolproof.
I'll be getting a refund, so if worst comes to worst I can just
file a temporary form by April 15 and not send any money. Like
yourself, I (over)pay my taxes for the coming year on April 15,
so unless I get an unexpectedly large distribution, I don't have
to bother thinking about quarterly payments for the rest of the
year.
Since my big distribution comes in November, overpaying
my taxes early also lets me avoid doing the calculation of
quarterly payments versus income in order to prove to the IRS
that I actually did pay enough to cover what money had come
in during the first three quarters, before the distribution. Once,
before I started overpaying, I got an assessment from the IRS
who had assumed my income was evenly distributed over the
year rather than coming in disproportionately in the last
quarter. I cleared that up by filling in a form showing when my
money had come in versus how much I had paid in taxes up
to that point. The form was particularly annoying though,
since every number depended on the previous number. The
IRS doesn't understand math that isn't in the form of an
accounting table, which makes everything take three or five
times as long as it should, and particularly sensitive to small,
inconsequential errors.
My memory was always bad but luckily hasn't gotten much
worse with age. It's more of a case of "I can't be bothered"
than "bad", I guess. The older I get, the less tolerant I
am of bureaucratic time-wasting routine. As I said to a friend
lately when I watched him run through a surprisingly
complex routine on his cell phone just to turn the ringer
back on after leaving the movies, the world is getting so
complicated that I'll eventually have to commit suicide just
to escape all the annoyances.
I remember my car license plate ID by an algorithm rather
than directly. That's easier for me than remembering the
ID. Luckily, the algorithm is easy, especially for somebody
who knows the point values of the tiles in Scrabble. (The
letters in the license plate are "XZJ", which are the three
highest-point tiles in Scrabble, excluding "Q". I start with
the excluded "Q" and then proceed through the alphabet
then back around to the beginning to get the three letters
in the right order. I have a different, but just as easy,
algorithm for the numbers. The algorithms minimize what
I have to just remember.) I still remember the key number
for the car I had two cars ago. It was X1508. Knowing
that came in handy once when I locked the keys in the
car and had to find a locksmith, who was amazed that I
could tell him the key number. I had to remember the "X",
but then I just had to remember that the number was as
far past 1500 as Columbus was before 1500.
.
- References:
- Big Push for Guest Worker Program
- From: Golden State Poppy
- Re: Big Push for Guest Worker Program
- From: Rumpelstiltskin
- Re: Big Push for Guest Worker Program
- From: Glenn
- Big Push for Guest Worker Program
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