Not quite a depression
A rainy Saturday.
Spent with Turbotax.
It promises to be such a lovely day.
(What time does basketball start?)
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140 comments Add your comment
Taxpayer
March 28th, 2009
8:43 am
We’ve already had our TurboTax™ weekend, electronically filed and received our acceptance e-mails. It sure beats the old days of filling out all those forms and crunching numbers with the slide rule — just kidding about the slide rule — and mailing off those reams of processed pulp.
I Report/ You Whine
March 28th, 2009
8:52 am
So how’d you cheat the government this year, Bookman?
I know how creative you liberals are, was the kids summer camp a business expense?
Did you “accidentally” overlook the chauffeur and limousine?
Be careful, that Turbotax program is “tricky,” even financial geniuses, economy savers and tax gurus have been “fooled” by it, for instance, our new IRS Cheat, er, I mean chief.
Unreal.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
9:10 am
Taxpayer:
I still have my K&E ($50 in 1965) in mint condition (including holster). I love showing it to students and asking them if they know what it is and what’s it called …………..
)
R. M. McLeod
March 28th, 2009
9:16 am
In the 3/26 paper you said this is the “greatest economic crisis in 80 years”. Would you compare conditions today with those in 1982 (27 years ago)? Please consider drop in GDP, unemplotment and any other measurements you choose.
jt
March 28th, 2009
9:24 am
yep, its that time of year again where over a 100 million sheeple will voluntarily give up every aspect of their families privacy to prying goverment worker’s eyes.
amazing.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
9:26 am
Jay:
Continuing from yesterday ………….
There is a very interesting short article in the current issue of “Vietnam Magazine” entitled “Vietnam’s Shadow Reaches Obama”.
You probably can’t bring it up on the internet yet as they delay that a few weeks but here is an excerpt:
“…….. Newsweek’s ominous January 31 cover proclaimed: ‘Obama’s Vietnam’ and an essay described a 2008 interview with Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the White House military adviser coordinating efforts in Afghanistan …….. ‘we have never been beaten tactically in a fire fight in Afghanistan’, Lute said. Even to the casual students of the Vietnam War, his statement has an eerie echo.”
“One of the iconic exchanges of Vietnam came, some years after the war, between Colonel Harry Summers, a military historian, and a counterpart in the North Vietnamese Army. As Summers called it, he said, ‘You never deafeated us in the field’, to which the NVA officer replied, ‘That may be true. It is also irrelevant’.
WE MUST BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL …………………
I Report/ You Whine
March 28th, 2009
9:31 am
Michael Totten has another good dispatch from Iraq-
Embedding with the United States military in Baghdad at the end of the surge is no longer like risking your neck in a war zone. It’s more like going on ride-alongs with the police. But it’s not like riding along with the New York police, or even with the Mexico City police. Baghdad is still Baghdad. While no longer a city at war, it’s not exactly peaceful and normal yet either.
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/03/baghdad-in-frag.php
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
9:32 am
To jt:
I believe in the rule of law, the Constitution, paying one’s taxes, etc.
I spent my first years in federal law enforcement with IRS Criminal Investigation Division working tax fraud cases. After three years I gave it up and moved on to something else. I saw then we had a very unfair, unmanageable, non-compliant, basically out of control tax system.
I know President Obama is setting up a “commission” to study the problem and make changes. It’s too big for that and nothing substantial will come of it.
We have got to scrap the old system and find a better way.
lwwmm7
March 28th, 2009
9:38 am
Be careful when you use the word “holster” around these parts. Next thing you know, you will be accused of taking a gun to school and threatening students with it.
lwwmm7
March 28th, 2009
9:39 am
I’m so old I still remember pocket protecters.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
9:46 am
To lwwm7:
True. Remember when we played “mublelypeg” in school ?
jt
March 28th, 2009
9:48 am
corporal- I too believe in the rule of law, the constitution, and I pay my taxes to protect my family and home.
but….did you know that the former USSR had a progressive and unmanagebal income tax system routinely used for political purposes, had a constitution that was ignored and even joked about, and a legal system that amounted to whoever had the most money won?
maybe the europhiles in obamas cliche will emulate europe and give us a consuption tax.
the repubs sure blew it when they had a chance.
Where is our Gobachev? what a real hero for Americans.
Redneck Convert
March 28th, 2009
9:50 am
Well, with all the computers they got I don’t see why they just can’t send us a bill like the phone co. and tell us how much we owe them. They already know about every penny we make. That way about half of us could tell them the check is in the mail and never send it. But no, they got to take money out of our paycheck and make us fill out a bunch of forms to get any of it back. It’s downright UnAmerican.
That’s why I think people are onto something about this Flat Tax or the Fair Tax. I think the Fair Tax is the way to go. Now I ain’t crazy about paying 30% more for a loaf of bread or a jug of milk but it would force alot of us to stop spending so much. We could even see a comeback of bartering where I fix your leaks if you give me some of the eggs your chickens lay. That way we cut the guvmint out of things and starve it till it has to cut back on all this spending. Instead of all this foreign aid we give away to countrys we could maybe give Mexico a bunch of home grown vegetables and they would keep their illegals home.
Anyhow, I’m real sorry Bookman brought up taxes this a.m. It will bring all the tax nuts out of the woodwork and somebody’s just bound to bring up Ron Paul. The libruls will bring up how unfair the Fair Tax is and the Conservatives will start talking about guvmint Socialism and how bad it is for guvmint to be stealing their wages. It never ends.
Have a good weekend everybody. I’m getting off of this blog before the fussing really starts and Bookman has to ban another 30 or 40 people. Like I said before somebody could get rich with a bumper sticker that says Honk If You’ve Been Banned By Bookman.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
9:50 am
To Iwwmm7:
Excuse me ….. “mumbledypeg”.
mum⋅ble⋅ty⋅peg
–noun a children’s game played with a pocketknife, the object being to cause the blade to stick in the ground or a wooden surface by flipping the knife in a number of prescribed ways or from a number of prescribed positions.
G
March 28th, 2009
9:51 am
Yep, taxes…been there, done that.
Now the Rushpublicants are getting all precise and lawyerly on us:
“There are things that you can call waterboarding that I am thoroughly convinced are not torture,” said Ashcroft in a video shot by an attendee at the UT lecture. “There are things that you can call waterboarding that might be torture. And the point that ought to be understood is that throwing a term around recklessly for its emotional content doesn’t really get you anywhere.”
http://rawstory.com/...
Hey wouldn’t it be great if we could confuse everyone into thinking the torture the Rushpublicants committed somehow was not torture? Where have we seen this story before. Let me think . . . (a ton of formerly secret, now widely discredited memos by former Attorney General Ashcroft’s folks in the Justice Department that may cause their authors like John Yoo to be disbarred because they are so immoral and wrong as a matter of law.)
lwwmm7
March 28th, 2009
9:55 am
Yeah, Corp, that was when every boy had a pocketknife and nobody ever fought with them on the playground. About the worst offense was chewing gum in class or shooting a spitball.
jt
March 28th, 2009
9:57 am
ron paul
lwwmm7
March 28th, 2009
9:59 am
Maybe we could have a weekend feature call the “unblog”, and relax after a week of insults and anonymous name-calling and just swap ideas and stories. Nah- what was I thinking?
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
10:03 am
HEADLINE: “Judge Rules ‘Under God’ May Stay in Texas Pledge of Allegiance…”
I think I’ll ask the ACLU to file a suit to remove “Texas” from the pledge. Didn’t that area get stolen from Mexico? That could offend some folks.
And while they’re at it, let’s have “America” removed from our national pledge …. I am sure there are some “native *********’s” who are upset with that.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
10:07 am
To G:
I was waterboarded in bootcamp. It taught me a valuable lesson.
To jt:
I hear you.
To lwwmm7:
You only committed misdemeanors. I went to the principal’s office for felony “metal heeltaps” on my shoes … too much noise on the wooden floors.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
10:12 am
HEADLINE: “New WTC skyscraper loses ‘Freedom’…”
Mor politcal correctness run amok ……….. sad.
HEADLINE: “CNN/Commentary: ‘Post-racial’ America isn’t here yet …”
And it never will be as someone will always have a gripe …..
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
10:15 am
Jay !!!
HEADLINE/MSNBC: “The fierce debate behind Obama’s Afghan plan …”
“Biden urged caution against a quagmire; military argued for more troops…”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29927145/
G
March 28th, 2009
10:15 am
http://washingtonindependent.com/36204/after-the-laughter-grim-gop-numbers
Oh those Rushpublicants – the party that supposedly hates taxes wants to raise taxes on the poorest Americans. Deja vu.
See the CTJ report below (pdf) – but be warned: There are numbers in it.
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/housegopplan20090327.pdf
lwwmm7
March 28th, 2009
10:16 am
And sometimes punishment was as harsh as having to dust the erasers, empty the pencil sharpeners, and other self-esteem destroying tortures. Not to mention-gasp- a couple of licks with a well-used paddle every now and then. No wonder we turned into the kind of men we are today!
ByteMe
March 28th, 2009
10:18 am
There’s a “Texas Pledge of Allegiance”? They needed a special one all for them?
You think there’s one for Alaska?
ByteMe
March 28th, 2009
10:20 am
G: how do you think they “crunched the numbers” on a budget plan built on whipped cream and popsicles?
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
10:28 am
To G:
What about my 10:07? Come on, take the bait …….
)
G
March 28th, 2009
10:30 am
ByteMe,
Simple. It’s because the nuts dreamed it up.
G
March 28th, 2009
10:32 am
Bill Maher hammering the budget right now. (4+ / 0-)
Good one from Bill Maher:
“The right wing is obsessed with the fact that Obama uses a teleprompter. Why? Because unlike Bush, he can actually read it.”
Taxpayer
March 28th, 2009
10:34 am
G,
I read that CTJ report. These Republicans sure do come up with some strange alternative plans.
G
March 28th, 2009
10:37 am
C,
>> I was waterboarded in bootcamp.<<
All I have to say is, that would explain a lot.
G
March 28th, 2009
10:40 am
Taxpayer @ 10:34,
Mindboggling, isn’t it? On second thought, not really.
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
10:42 am
Rainy mornin’, all.
While I always considered myself middling-personal-computer-savvy going back decades, I resisted using tax software for years. A weird part of me actually enjoyed the process:
1. Get the forms at the library or post office
2. Collect the filed stuff and try to fill in the rest of the memory-hole with discarded check registers and cancelled checks (remember those?)
3. Read up on any pertinent changes on the last tax year
4. Pull it all together at the kitchen table, usually at one two- or three-hour sitting. This part was the most pleasurable part of the annual ritual for me. It was like doing a new jigsaw puzzle each year. (I think I might be the only American who felt that way; I’ve yet to meet anyone who agreed/agrees.)
5. Show work to not-terribly-interested spouse who always–foolishly, sometimes–trusted that I knew well enough what I was doing and signed off her part of the joint return.
5. Photocopy a file copy, and mail (just prior, one hoped, a really-last-this-time check of the math to make sure nothing got screwed up), and the customary 4-6 week wait for a modest refund. Well, modest if I’d done everything right the year before, although I’m a chronic wimp about witholding and tend to err on the conservative side so I give the Gubmint an interest-free loan every year. I’m still that way; I always figure next year I’ll have less to deduct and I don’t want to wind up owing anything, although I should work it so I do owe a bit. But I never do.
All that paper-based stuff changed a few years back when I went to see a CPA to hire his services after a particularly tricky tax year. I sat and watched him plug a few numbers into his PC. Suddenly I decided I wanted that hour or so of my life back spent filling in the forms, and having all the math checked for me seemed a good thing too.
So I went TurboTax and never went back, although I do hope the competitors keep Quicken on their toes, because they’ve gotten pretty greedy with the pricing of late (and I really, really resent how they structure their pricing so as to make their online version the way they want you to go–mostly I’m peeved at how they want our information in their damn databases to peddle to others to go so cheap. The greedy fockers ought to have to pay usfor that. But I digress.)
Anyway, that’s how I remember it.
Anything interesting in this comments thread? I’ll have a look now.
Lee
March 28th, 2009
10:49 am
Of all the regular bloggers on here, Redneck Convert is usually the guy who makes the most sense.
Scary….
Regarding taxes, was it John Marshall or Daniel Webster who coined the phrase “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
How very true.
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
10:55 am
G @ 9.15, I don’t think anyone anticipated the House GOP tax plan would reward rich folks at the expense of the poor.
(or a breech of the levees.)
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
10:57 am
was it John Marshall or Daniel Webster who coined the phrase “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
I don’t know. If only there were a massive search engine out there where one could simply plug in a phrase between quotation marks and find instances of it appearing verbatim!
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
10:59 am
What about my 10:07? Come on, take the bait …….
)
Face facts, Corporal. You’re not the master baiter you think you are.
Taxpayer
March 28th, 2009
11:00 am
The house GOP tax plan not only further rewards the rich at the expense of the working class poor, it also increases the deficit by another 300 billion. How do these GOP manage to spout their rhetoric about wanting to lower the deficit and debt while proposing to increase it. I know just the right word for that GOP plan — NO!
ByteMe
March 28th, 2009
11:01 am
DB/G:
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
11:02 am
“The right wing is obsessed with the fact that Obama uses a teleprompter. Why?”
Honestly? beyond the obvious–the right wing is told that something is Very Good or Very Bad and they obey their commands like the good obedient authoritarian-receptive personalities that they are?
Mostly it’s just cloudy memory. They’ve forgotten that (for example) before a press conference, say, President Bush would read prepared remarks. From a teleprompter or a printed page; I don’t really remember which, but I certainly didn’t care. ditto for other Presidents.
Maybe the reason they’ve forgotten is because Bush held very few prime-time press conferences.
Taxpayer
March 28th, 2009
11:02 am
Corporal learned that fish have gills — not humans.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
11:07 am
To G:
You’re no fun.
I have a good idea. Put the whiney “non-combatants” through SEAL training (just the several weeks of hypothermia/semi-drowning/sleep deprivation/food deprivation/beach part) and then give them a chance to talk. If they don’t, guess what? Back for SEAL refresher trianing and continue the cycle until they do ………. what’s good for our troops should be fine for them ……………
)
Taxpayer:
Did you see my 9:10 ?
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
11:09 am
Anyone else find it amusing how hair-trigger the righties have been with the term “tax cheat” to describe, basically, anyone who’s audit has found them out of compliance and needing to pay back taxes?
For the record, by this standard I’ve been a “tax cheat” on two occasions that I can recall. One of them was after I’d asked the advice of my company’s comptroller, who was also a part-time tax preparer and a CPA, about our tax liability on a spouse’s few weeks of unemployment compensation. Hey, we all screw up–he did with the advice, I did taking it, but I asked the Feds nicely to waive the fines and they did.
Some years later I was a “tax cheat” again–sold some funds, didn’t account for the capital gain properly, the Feds told me they had to based their assessment on some crazy best-case figure. Again, I filed the right form, asked nicely for any fines to be waived, and they were.
Guess I can’t be in the Cabinet now. Oh well.
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
11:09 am
To DB, Gwinnettian @ 10:59:
Congratulations ! You have now made it as #4 on my list. You have lost all future rights at dialogue with me. I know you’re terribly upset by this but I feel great! Goodbye forever !
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
11:12 am
Maybe we could have a weekend feature call the “unblog”, and relax after a week of insults and anonymous name-calling and just swap ideas and stories.
Works for me. A-hole.
(j/k. I love you, man!)
Corporal
March 28th, 2009
11:13 am
To All:
By the way ……. here’s the list. If you want to be on it just add your name and send it back.
1) Midori
2) Chad Harris
3) Mrs. Godzilla
4) DB Gwinnettian
ByteMe
March 28th, 2009
11:13 am
C: You have a list??
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
11:15 am
If it were virtually anyone but our Corporal @ 11.09 I’d assume that was snark in reply to a good-natured ribbing. Alas…
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
11:15 am
An enemies list?
DB, Gwinnettian
March 28th, 2009
11:16 am
Sorry, do-over!
An enemies list?