Fair Tax Nation

Replace All Federal Taxes on Income with the Fair Tax Act , HR 25

I freakin' HATE the tax code!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seems that in my deluded effort to earn a good living and make a life for myself and my family, I made just enough $$ last year to not qualify to take just about any of my deductions.

I was expecting to get about $15k back on total withholdings of about $19k. Nope... I get a whopping $181.00 back at this point "Unless I can think of something else" - according to my accountant.

$19,000 gone...wasted....down the proverbial Gubment toilet.

I guess I am left with only 2 options this year:

1) Figure out a way to hide my income.

or

2) Choose to make JUST ENOUGH to not get whacked next year.

Screw 'em. I'm going to go throw up now.

FairTax '09

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Permalink Reply by John Pierce on February 20, 2009 at 5:48pm
I hate it also.

For kicks using Turbo Tax I just plugged in $100 as a charitable deduction and had my taxes reduce by $10.
To hear some politicians this deduction is why I would give $100 to a cause.
For further kicks I put in about $7000 in mortgage interest and taxes and guess how much came off my taxes...$200. All the talk about mortgage interest deduction and how important it is to the economy...what a crock of you know what.
Our present system punishes is all along the way until we die and then it taxes us again in estate taxes.
The Fair Tax is the answer. We have to ask our elected officials why they do not support the Fair Tax and if either of the above is their answer or it raises the price of everything by 23% is their answer do not let them get away with that smug response, ask them if the read the bill, aks them if the understand the bill but keep at them.
Permalink Reply by Peter D. on February 20, 2009 at 6:00pm
Amen. I'm not letting any of them off the hook that easily.

Good news is that I think - get this - I found a LOOPHOLE.

So... because I made "too much," I am forced to use LEGAL "loopholes" to protect myself from an oppressive government tax policy.

Really, truly, a sad day for me. Let's pray that this will be the last return I'll have to file. :)
Permalink Reply by Jane Haas on February 20, 2009 at 6:08pm
I feel your pain! When I worked as an I.T. Specialist I worked tons of overtime. 48, 72 and sometimes 120 hour shifts to make double time and make more money. Wouldn't you know it? Due to the change in the income bracket, they took more taxes and I ended up at year end making less than I would have if I hadn't done all that extra overtime. There is no incentive to work hard. I stopped donating to charitable organizations when I worked there because I realized the bulk went to administrative fees and started just bringing my old coats in to work with me and giving them to random homeless people instead, and also doing volunteer work with Make-A-Wish foundation setting up computers for terminally ill kids and teaching them to use it. It was a lot more gratifying than just donating money and I knew they were actually benefiting from my time, rather than lining pockets of organizations for a measly tax write off!
Permalink Reply by Jane Haas on February 20, 2009 at 6:11pm
You know, I wonder how many people would still donate if the tax deduction incentive (as teeny as it is) if we had the fair tax. I never actually looked into how it would affect charitable organizations. I believe you can take a deduction for the time you volunteer, though I never have done that, it was fun for me and I forgot! LOL
Permalink Reply by Jim Tomasik on February 21, 2009 at 5:37am
IMHO,

I donate and don't bother keeping up with the deductions. Its not worth it and its not the reason I have them deducted from my bank account every month. I give because I care about what the people at Saint Jude in Memphis or Shriners in St Louis do for kids not becasue of what the government can do for me.

I think people will always give to good causes.

Jim
Permalink Reply by Earl Mathews on February 21, 2009 at 7:39am
I am a volunteer coordinator with a hospice business. I have offered to provide them with their time and mileage but they are not interested simply because they are volunteers and not expecting anything in return.
Permalink Reply by Ty on February 20, 2009 at 6:45pm
I know how you feel... But I have it even worse.

I make enough such that my normal withholdings are NOT enough to pay my taxes. I actually had to add 50 bucks per month onto my W2 to pay enough. On top of that I'm approaching the AMT value, which means I'll have to pay EVEN MORE.

Under the current tax code success and hard work are punished.
Permalink Reply by Raymond Chuang on February 20, 2009 at 7:38pm
Gerald Celente has predicted we could see an all-out tax revolt as early as this summer. You know what--he's right, and if we play our cards right it will be spearheaded by the FairTax movement, which will finally make the people inside the Beltway realize that most of our current economic mess comes from the effects of our Federal income tax system, a system with over 67,500 pages of documentation so complex even the IRS can't figure it out at times! Maybe even President Obama will realize the folly of the Federal income tax and immediately do something about it, like getting FairTax into law and repealing the 16th Amendment at the same time. President Obama campaigned on the theme of "change"; how about doing the ultimate change, namely dumping the economically oppressive Federal income tax system?
Permalink Reply by Joe McCune on February 21, 2009 at 9:21pm
FAIRTAX=====CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN
Permalink Reply by Tony on February 20, 2009 at 11:10pm
Well I changed jobs this year and made more....plus my wife was promoted.

Get the 3 W2's (old and new job and my wifes job) and we were out about $50 with state and federal combined.
Was hoping for something back, but no.
So off to TurboTax I go.....VERY easy to use....mo idea how Turbo Tim got lost but anyway....

Within 10 minutes of filing I hear the mail drop....go check and for some stupid reason my wife has a 2nd W2 from the same employer with about $2,000 extra on it.
So I input the amount and BHAM.....$300 for Fed and $300 for State - owed!!

I was REALLY RREEAALLLLLLYYY tempted to just say the heck with it....I'll not bother....but I know I'd be looking over my shoulder the whole time (yes I'm that paranoid about these things).
So I just filed the 1040X and sent in a check to the Fed with FairTax ALL over it.
Sending out state tomorrow.

Only thing that sucks more is we're right in the middle of buying a house so this coming out of the budget....not good.

I hate the tax code, and this is only my 4th year having to deal with it.
I feel your pain!!

It doesn't pay to be successful, it really doesn't.
Permalink Reply by Bill Rollyson on February 22, 2009 at 10:46am
Historical studies have shown that charitable giving is tied more to the current economic environment that the tax deduction. First of all, almost 80% of giving is by individuals. 61% of those (48% of the take the charitable deduction. This deduction is only a portion of what they give. As John stated below, in his case, a $100 deductible saved him $10. Noone is going to give $100 to save $10 unless they first and foremost, care about the organization they are giving to. If you care about the organization's cause, you will give regardless of the deduction and will give more when you have more. For example, under Reagan, the top tax rate dropped from 70% to 28% (raising the aftertax cost of giving) yet charitable giving doubled from 1980 to 1987 as the economy grew.

AFFT has a study here: http://www.fairtax.org/site/DocServer/TheFairTaxandCharitableGiving... on the impact of the FairTax on Charitable giving. To summarize it, removal of the tax deduction raises the cost slightly of giving, but that is more than offset by the increased GDP, rasing the level of giving.

A good source of "Giving" information is givingusa.org. They now charge for their newsletters and reports, but if you google "Giving USA" you can find summaries of their studies. Google it under images and you will find some of their charts
Permalink Reply by Nancy Oakes on June 22, 2009 at 9:07pm
I lived in NY for 2 years, moved back hoime to NJ in Feb '08. Bought a townhouse hoping to stop getting whacked with taxes. I continued to work in NYC as I have for the past 9 years. I got laid off in April '09. Collecting unemployment from NY State which doesn't even cover my mortgage, maintenance fee and car payment. Forget about other bills. I had to pay the IRS $1389 in taxes on April 15th, bye-bye most of my severance pay. I thought I was getting a small refund from NY State, but alas, in my mail today I received notice that I miscalcutated my taxes and instead of them owing me $575, I owe them $2,254. This miscalculation is apparently for the NYC taxes for just 2 months of 2008!! I can't even make sense of it. I'm not stupid, but I really need someone to explain all of this to me.

It would take me 6 weeks to save that in unemployment and I'd have to not pay ANY other bills or eat for that matter. Taxes are insane. Not to mention that every year I have to do taxes for my 80 year old mother. Come on.

Sorry, had to gripe out loud.

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