All but gnashing of teeth to be over at midnight
Do you find it taxing? Yes, today is the day. That annual event that strikes fear into so many wallets and pocketbooks. The day of days when the reckoning comes like some great hoary bird swooping down with talons extended to rip a large piece of your flesh from your dry bones. The day that probably more checks are written in tears.
Well, you know what day I’m talking about.
April 15.
Need I say more?
If you haven’t finished your annual paper trail to prove that you have supported the programs, policies, etc., of the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you are in a pickle. Unless, of course, you know how to file an extension. But that doesn’t absolve you from sending a tax payment in before midnight today (if one is owed).
Well, it is such an important thing to do that I doubt if many are scrambling to finish the chore, unless of course they owe money to the government. Then they will post their return at the last minute in order to hang onto that which they worked so hard for a little longer.
Personally, I enjoy doing our taxes. It always carries an air of excitement, anticipation.
“Will we have to pay? Will we get something back? Will the government demand our first born (even if we don’t have one and have never listed one as a dependent).’
It’s a challenge. I always start with a blank sheet of paper. Or did until a few years ago when I learned how to do my taxes via the Internet.
Either way, I prefigure our financial data before filling in the official form. I add up all the income we had for the previous year, which is usually one figure that doesn’t need to be added, then flip through the pages of the tax booklet to the section that lists all the different ways to file – single, head of household, married filing jointly, married filing separately – and scroll down to find our tax bracket and impending doom…er…payment.
It’s at that point that I learn if we won or not.
Sounds like a contest, huh?
Well, in some respects, it is. There have been so many changes in the tax codes over the past decade and with the current administration in Washington, D.C., coming up with all kinds of vote-getting tax cuts, etc., that I have no idea if we will owe or be owed to until I get to the bottom line.
Yes, we have payroll deductions here at the newspaper (that’s right, I actually get paid for doing things like this column) so most of the tax is removed in small dollops each payday. It’s not as painful that way, unless you carefully examine your pay stub, something I avoid doing too often.
But I am never quite sure if those deductions will be sufficient to cover the bill. I mean, the last I heard, every working man and woman is, in a roundabout way, working for the government for about the first four months of the year.
In other words, it takes our total income during those first four months to satisfy all of our tax burden; what we pay to the governments federal, state, county, city (or borough or township), school district, at the retail store, at the gas pumps, for dinner out, etc.
That’s a lot of money so I don’t like it when I learn we have to pay more. Of course I get so much for my taxes. The freedom to complain about high taxes is high on the list. And if I get something back, then I feel like I have won the lottery – well, a very small lottery with an even smaller payoff.
And, this year, in addition to getting a refund (yes, we won the tax lottery this time) I got something extra. Tax day just happens to be the same day this column is published so it gave me an obvious thing to write about. Hey, I’ll take anything I can get. Wouldn’t you?
Have a good day.
Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard’s business editor. E-mail: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.