Books and taxes

[altivo]

So we'd procrastinated long enough and did the taxes tonight. Both of us get refunds, for the first time in several years. It seems as if usually one of us ends up having to pay a chunk of cash either to the state or the feds. I got tired of that last year and increased the amount being withheld, so this year there's money to be returned for a change, plus the so-called "stimulus" money if that ever really materializes. (Of course that's all a pile of lies, they're just giving you back your own money even though they have a huge deficit and the war spending is literally bankrupting all of us.)

For National Library Week (April 13-19) we decided to do a display of "Library Staff recommended" books. Consequently I was asked to list half a dozen books I had read recently, that the library owns and can put in the display. Now, naming books I've read recently is easy. But it seems as if many of them are furry titles that aren't typical library items. Don't hold your breath for an appearance by Kyell Gold's works on your public library shelves, alas. However, with a little thought, I came up with the following list. All are in the library's collection except for the last two, and those are on order and just haven't arrived yet.

• The Hunt Ball by Rita Mae Brown
• Thud! by Terry Pratchett
• The Pride of Chanur by C. J. Cherryh
• Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith
• New Coyote by Michael Bergey
• Common and Precious by Tim Susman
• White Crusade by Ben Goodridge

Comments

[corelog.livejournal.com]

I don't know which book it was in the series, but I remember reading one of the Chanur volumes. I think it might have been Chanur's Legacy, but like I said, I don't recall for sure. This was easily five years ago, if not six.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

If it was Chanur's Legacy and you hadn't read the others, it must have been a bit, er, confusing. I think they are out of print but the full text is floating around online now.

[corelog.livejournal.com]

It was extraordinarily confusing. :)

But it didn't matter to me at the time. It was the closest thing to furry that I could get in under the watchful eye of my parents. That alone made it worth the confusion and slog.

I didn't know it was part of a series until your post just now. I always thought the book was meant to be that confusing. As though I'd stepped into a world that fully existed, without knowing anything about it. Very odd, but very interesting. If one could just let go of one's expectation for rationality.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*smirks* What a co-inky-dink, I'm dealing with the taxes mess too :P The one year my documents are easy to find, I now have to go on a quest to get a tax form! *snickers* all that's left at the local library are last year's forms :P Somehow, I manage to make everythign in my life an uphill climb :/ Hey, do they usually have them in local post offices?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Post offices are supposed to have them, but not all do. The attitude more and more is that everyone is supposed to file electronically or pay H&R Block to do it. I hope that will change if we get these corporate profit-barons out of power.

The library should have either a book of master forms that can be photocopied, or a CDROM with the forms on it that can be printed. Lacking that, you can download and print them from the IRS web site. If Florida has an income tax, their forms should also be available on the web.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*sighs* It's looking more & more like I'm gonna have to take the online route- which is still new to me. Now if I wanted to collect last year's income tax documents, I'd have it made :P

As always, thanks for the links...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I don't recommend online filing if you have to use a public computer. It's far from secure enough, and there can be issues if you get interrupted partway through. You should be able to print the forms from a library computer though. I imagine you don't have itemized deductions so the 1040A or 1040EZ should be all you need. Even if you don't really need to file, you want to do so because of the "economic stimulus payment" or whatever they're calling it. You should receive something from that if it really happens.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*nods in agreement* I'll only file online if I'm desperate...which is about 4 or 5 days away ^_^ Damn right I'm up for some stimulus! *slurps coffee* I'm still cheesed I missed out on that $300 Shrub the Great doled out a while back :/

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Go tax refunds!

And I loves me a Rita Mae.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think you'd like Hockensmith, and also Bergey if you haven't read him.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Strange thing with the taxes as we can't adjust how much get's witheld. That's automatically set by the government.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The US has probably one of the most complex income tax systems in the entire world. Nothing like the Swedish "How much did you earn? Hand over all of it," but a rather a huge and messy exercise in fractions, percentages, and subtractions that runs into pages and pages of instructions and exceptions.

There is a system for payroll deduction, but the employee fills out a form to set the level of deduction. When the taxes come due, if you end up owing more than a certain amount, they make you pay interest on it for "being late" but if you had too much taken out they just drag their feet about giving it back, without any interest. Puts the entire responsibility for having the right amount deducted and prepaid on you, the citizen.

If you choose to have nothing deducted, or are self-employed or whatever, then you are expected to make "quarterly payments" according to some predictive formulas on how much you will make in the year. The same business about interest penalties applies if you guess wrong. The amount of paperwork in all this is staggering. Several times Congress has passed "tax reform" legislation that was supposed to "simplify" it and make it less burdensome, but they've only succeeded in making it worse and worse.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Do you have some kind of added on Sales tax, GST or VAT?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We have lots of other taxes, though nothing quite like a VAT thank goodness. (That seems to allow the same thing to be taxed and taxed again until the taxes exceed the value of the object being penalized.)

Many of these taxes are "excise" taxes that impose a fixed rate on particular items when they are sold. Retailers have to deal with calculating and paying those, for the most part, whether they explicitly add them onto the bill as a separate line item or just include them in the sale price.

Sales taxes (a percentage of the amount paid by an end user) are usually imposed at the state level. There is no federal sales tax. Some states have sales taxes, some don't. Some states and a few cities have income taxes separate from the federal levy as well. Illinois has a sales tax but doesn't call it that because the state constitution forbids the imposition of a sales tax. Instead they call it a "retailer's occupational tax" and allow the retail seller to add it onto the customer's bill. Same result either way, and a hypocritical way of getting around the constitution in my opinion. The sales tax was originally forbidden here because there is also a state income tax, and the authors of the constitution felt that having both was double taxation, which it is. The burden of paperwork for the ROT is nearly as bad as the federal income tax, but has to be filed only by retail sellers of goods. It is complicated by the fact that the tax rate varies from county to county and sometimes by city, so if you do business in multiple locations it becomes maddeningly messy. The state income tax, on the other hoof, is pretty simple. It's a flat percentage rate, regardless of income level, with only a few types of income that are exempt.. A single sheet of paper suffices for the necessary filing in most cases, and the percentage is quite low, about 2 percent compared to the average federal tax rate of 20 percent or more..

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Oh dear o.O GST here is paid to the States, and income tax is paid to the federal government. The business tax rate doesn't vary between states I don't think. GST is the same in all states. State government taxes are kind of imbedded in things like property rates, stamp duty and localised fees. I think.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

It's a lot simpler than your system by the sound of it o.O