life hereafter

random musings from a wannabe economist

Wow, the government is really fast at pulling money right out of your bank account when you owe them. I guess times are tough…

Speaking of taxes, I just finished completing the paper forms for my seventh and final state. Whew. If I was deciding where to live based solely on Tax forms I’m pretty sure that North Carolina would be at the bottom of my list. Delaware would be at the top. In Delaware all you basically do its copy over all of the lines from your federal return and tell them if there are any differences with your income or deductions with respect to their state. It’s two pages and your tax is computed on a simple ratio basis. Done in 7 minutes.

North Carolina on the other hand. Four pages long. The first page after you finish with the pleasantries of filling out your name, SSN and which horrible political party you want your money to go to, they have you jumping all over creation. I believe question 12 told me to go to page 3 and complete questions 37 through 52 and bring the result back here. Once on page 3 and you get to question 38 it tells you to go to the instructions and complete worksheet A on page 12. Once there one of the questions on the worksheet asks you to complete the Deduction Exemptions worksheet on the Federal 1040 instructions. So, here I am with two computers with four PDF documents open trying to complete these worksheets on pen and paper, only to get to the end of the worksheet and have it tell me that none of this matters and they are going to use the results on page 1 anyway. Oh and not to mention that Acrobat Reader crashed on me half way through and I tried to complete the forms again from memory and came out to a different result… I hate you NC Department of Revenue.

It was like one of those choose your own adventure books where you keep dying. Anyway, at least that is over.

I sure do hope that California doesn’t send me an IOU for the $2 they owe me… And yes, I will be cashing that check. It’s a principles thing.

Dear President Omaba;

I know you and the Congress are currently struggling with small ways we can reduce the national debt that won’t greatly impact everyone. As I was reviewing my mail this evening I saw a letter from the US Department of Commerce with the words 2010 Census on the envelope. Thinking that this was in-fact the census I opened the envelope to find it contained a letter stating that I would be receiving a letter containing the actual census in one week.

What is this? The Works Progress Administration (WPA) at work here? Did we need to bail out the Postal Service by mailing millions of letters saying “LOOK OUT, a letter is coming!” How many millions did that cost the tax payer?

I realize these are already sunk costs, however I’d like to make an early recommendation for the 2020 Census. Let’s stick to just sending out one letter with the form inside.

Sincerely,
Everyone

P.S. We are also in the 21st century. Perhaps next time we can try conducting the actual census virtually for those of us with Social Security Numbers and drivers licenses?