Friday, March 16, 2018

Ouch. Taxes Doth Really, Really, Suck.

Well I have finished the 2017 taxes.

In terms of household expenses, Taxes are the largest single expense we've got, by far, and that's not even throwing in Michigan's 6% sales tax into the mix.

We also unfortunately screwed up our withholding, as Tash did better than she expected and had withheld for, by a lot compared to last year, and so we will be writing a whopping big check to the IRS this year. Big as in "OMG how the hell are we gonna pay this?" huge.

Next in second place comes Medical expenses when you add the insurance premium and deductible and then rest not even covered by insurance and its a flipping lot of money. Thanks a lot Obama, you schmuck.

Only in third place comes the house as an expense.

In short, it was a pretty damn horrific tax return. Could have bought a very decent Piper Warrior with the Fed and state income taxes we paid this year.

And you wonder why it's so hard to get ahead.

Instead of withholding over the year, they shuld really make everyone write one check on April 15. I daresay you'd have a much louder call for a smaller, less wasteful, and more efficient government then. Oh, and hold national elections on April 16.

3 comments:

MrGarabaldi said...

Hey Aaron;

I have said for many years that "withholding" is a racket, you ask the average smuck on the street"How much you make a month?" They will stammer "Well my take home is $$$". They have no idea how much they actually make. If people had to write a check on April 15th every year, you would hear "Ethel, get me scattergun, I am going to DC on the Potomac and hash this out."

Old NFO said...

OUch... And yes, make people write the check!!! Sigh

drjim said...

We got hit this year for about $6k when we usually get about that much back. We didn't have the mortgage/tax deductions for about 4 months last year, and then we held $10k back from the sale of the Kalifornia house because we knew we'd need a cushion of cash moving in to the new house.