Just Cut Me

It's tax time. I stand before my computer with an expensive plastic disc and inhale deeply, composing myself. The computer rips the disc from my hand and stares at me as though it were King Arthur and I was just an old stone with a hole in it.

The tax software is designed to be soothing. It's chatty. Hey there! We're just going to ask you a few questions. Let's get started!

All righty then.

First we need to know a little about your living arrangements. Did Mary and David live together?

I don't know that it's any of your business, but yes.

Do you have any straddles to report?

Now you're getting personal.

Oh, I've seen this movie before. The prosecutor approaches the lady on the witness stand and smiles:

"Hello there, Mrs. Crabtree. Are you comfortable? Would you like a pillow? A little tea, perhaps?"

Mrs. Crabtree says some tea would be nice. Tea is provided.

"Mrs. Crabtree, tell me--if you had it to do over, do you think you could beat your previous time for rendering Mr. Crabtree through the garbage disposal using only Drano and a lemon zester?"

Same dude works for TurboTax. He starts out cheerful. Let's talk a little about your investment income!

Okay. We can try that.

Do you have any unearned capital-loss carryover limitations dividend consolidation peremptories as reported to you on a form 5129-C, AK-47, or PA 6-5000? Do not include passive debt spackling from any foreign source.

Shit.

I have no freaking idea what the answers to some of the questions are. At first I try real hard to answer them correctly. After a while I choose whichever answer doesn't lead me down a rabbit hole. If I say "yes," I get a bunch more questions I can't answer. If I say "no," we magically move onto a different topic. I begin saying "no" a lot.

It's not the paying of taxes that I mind. My government does a lot of things with our money that I'm not crazy about, but in general I'm okay with the system. I like the idea that we're all banding together to do things we couldn't accomplish as individuals. If I see a ballot measure that proposes to use public money to create an interpretive nature and history trail for underserved kids staffed by trained counselors in bunny suits and featuring a free lunch dispensary, petting zoo, and interactive educational kiosks powered by a solar array, I'm all sign me up! So it's not the taxes. I just want them to slice me open with a quick knife and take the money. I don't see why I have to get a tattoo needle and ink in all the little perforation lines and arrows on myself for the knife entry point.

I switch over to State Tax for the relief of it. State Tax is easy. With State Tax it's just me, my income, and the big knife. I squint at the form. It says:

"Line 22. Do not complete Line 22."

Whuh? Should I start Line 22 and then stop short of filling it in? If I were going to put something on Line 22, and promise to pull out at the last second, what would it be?

Dave had wisely gone out on one of his marathon walks. Three hours in I texted him that it was not yet safe to return home.

A few hours later he comes home anyway. By now I am past the anger stage that comes right after the feeling-stupid stage, and have edged past bargaining and into depression, characterized by snuffling and whimpering. "I need a beer," I say. A beer is produced on the spot. Dave monitors its disappearance over the next minute and has a second ready to go. It seems to help.

Because now, I don't care if I got the answers right. If they wanted the right answers, they'd have asked different questions. They could have asked me why leaves turn color in the fall, and I'd be all over that. I'm throwing myself on the mercy of the court. I did the best I could. Go ahead and audit me if you're so damn smart. Maybe y'all owe ME money.

Funny Business

I don't want to let the subject of taxes go without expressing our appreciation for the fat credit we got for installing solar panels. That was a gift from all of you other taxpayers, and we're grateful. Now that you've finally got it right, I don't think I'd be out of line for mentioning that we like this a whole lot better than that war you've been getting us the last God knows how many years, which was the wrong size.

Something else. Once I got done with the preparation and sent it all off to meet its taker, my tax prep software wanted to know if I was interested in learning my chances of getting audited. I'm not particularly afraid of getting audited. If it happens, I will stride into the office with a clean conscience. "I've done the best I could," I'll say. "You figure it out, and then get back to me." Which is what I wish they'd do from the get-go, anyway.

Still, I clicked "yes" to the question, and my software then assured me my risk of audit was low. On the other hand, they saw some "areas of concern." Would I like to see the areas of concern?

Not really. I don't even like it when my friends tell me they're concerned about me. It's never anything good, and it interferes with my avoidance strategy.

But this is just a stupid bunch of software. A stupid, wickedly intuitive bunch of software. I could click "no thanks," and it would lean back, stroke its beard, arch one brow, and say well then. Okay. I just wanted to ask. Then I could banish its icon from my desktop and send it to its folder, where it would tell all my other documents about me. I hate when that happens.

Fine. Since you must know, Mr. Fancypants Tax Software, yes, I have a business that doesn't appear to be taking in any money. If you'd take the time to notice, Mr. Fancypants Tax Software, I said that right up front, when you asked the nature of my business, and I typed in "writing." Do you know what that means? That means that I am employed in the business of distilling my entire life experience and language heritage into little jewels of verbiage to charm the hearts or loosen the bowels of dozens of unnamed souls in the blogosphere, for no remuneration whatsoever. Similarly, I am compelled to concoct gems of humor for the likes of Smithsonian Magazine or The New Yorker, one of which wants humor as long as it isn't all that funny, and the other of which doesn't care if it's funny at all as long as it's gimmicky enough. And to do this I need to take my natural wit and cook it down till all the funny is rendered out of it, leaving only a thin gruel of light chuckling. Then I must send it out and wait several months for a rejection notice, or--because people in my situation are a dime a peck--an extended silence that I can feel free to interpret as a rejection after an abject half-year or so. I will have you know, Mr. Fancypants Tax Software, that I have been rejected by the best of them, and also by the North Dakota Living Magazine.

And why is this a business? It is a business because it is all in the service of developing an audience for more of my productions, which will also go unremunerated. It is a business because I am writing a novel that I would like people to read, and I have been solemnly informed that I require a platform in order to get anyone to read it. I need to network without appearing to stalk, work the social media without appearing to wheedle, and urge my readers to tell all their friends about me without appearing to snivel, all so that some day people will want to part with a dab of cash for this book I'm writing. And why should they, when they can get so much for free? I have no idea, Mr. Fancypants Tax Software. To be absolutely honest, I don't even care that much if they do pay, as long as they read it. But you asked if I had a business, not if I had an intelligent business plan.

So thank you for your concern, but if I were you, I'd just grow up and get used to the fact that I'm going to be writing off the cost of my printer cartridges for years to come. Suck on that, Mack.

Murrconomics

I'm not an economist. Fortunately, you don't need to study economics to form an opinion. You can get them at the opinion store. There are scads of economists of all stripes sitting around in bloviation tanks, and you can just pick one out like a lobster. They're like scriptures: you can find one to match any position you might want to take.

Usually, when people form opinions without the benefit of sound scientific knowledge, bad results happen. I make an exception for the science of economics. I will freely admit I have no idea how the economy works; this is the main difference between me and most economists. But I do have eyeballs, and time-in, and have made several observations.

Even in very small societies, people quickly discover they are better off if they band together for some things. In very large ones, it's the only way to fly. We need to transport goods to market, punish miscreants, and make sure our poop has somewhere to go. We all need to chip in to see these things done. Reasonable people can disagree on what and how much should be done. Many people think the government goes too far in providing things, and they make good points. I think access to adequate health care should be provided for all, and I think we might economize a bit by reducing the amount of wherewithal available for the country to bomb the living crap out of another country. I think this would make us safer, too. That's just my opinion--you might draw the lines elsewhere.

But whatever it is we agree to go in on together, taxes are how we pay for them. Who pays them, and how much they are dinged, is the subject of much discussion these days. Some people think the rich are the last people who should be asked to pony up. I disagree, and not just because they're the ones with the money, although I wouldn't look for olives on a walnut tree. I think it comes down to fairness.

Some people believe a flat tax is the most fair, because everyone pays the same percentage of their income. I disagree, because I believe it is the sacrifice that people make that needs to be evened up, not the percentage. Let's see how this works by using the arbitrary but easily-calculated tax rate of 50% as an example. A man making $20,000 a year is really going to feel a $10,000 tax. But I would imagine one lives just about the same on a billion dollars as a half a billion dollars. I don't think I could even tell the difference. I also think that those who could tell the difference should not be considered moral arbiters.

You hear claims that wealthy people have earned their money. Some have, and others haven't done a damn thing for it. And there is a certain amount of money I don't think it is possible to earn, not in a moral sense. I don't care to listen to anyone farting through silk who thinks he's worked hard for his money, not when I've watched my husband come home for 35 years shredded, sliced up, and, on some occasions, on fire. In fact, above a certain level of income, I'm all for a 90% rate. If you can't live as well on a hundred million dollars as you can on a billion, you need to work on your priorities. You may have problems, but they're not ones I should have to subsidize. Because that is what we are doing. Whatever we decided to pay for as a society--missiles and healthcare, or just basic cable and donuts on Fridays--we need to come up with a way of paying for it, and if the lucky sperm club shouldn't be asked to contribute, then the rest of us have to. If you are so fortunate that your own money is making all your money, why should that be exempt from taxation when the meager earnings of the single mom holding down two crappy jobs isn't?

The current theory is that the rich people should not be inconvenienced by the demands of comity because they're the ones who are providing jobs for the rest of us. Those jobs should be kicking in any time now, because we lowered the taxes on the rich people several years ago. There should be so many jobs by now that they're just loitering in gangs, making nuisances of themselves.

In fact, very wealthy people and corporations have created gobs of jobs in the last few decades. Unfortunately for us, they're in China, where most of our manufacturing jobs went. People work for way less money and no benefits and no one whines about the pollution. What's not to love? A dangerously obese corporation called Walmart got the ball rolling by going Godzilla on our economy. It was a win-win for Walmart. They got everything made a lot cheaper, and destroyed entire manufacturing towns here, the factory workers and the diners and ma-and-pa stores they shopped at, until no one could afford to shop anywhere but Walmart. People who invested in Walmart did really well. Even better, because they don't have to pay as much tax on their "earnings" as the people who have to haul their carcasses out of bed to go to work do.

The next time you hear some politician railing about "job-killing taxes," haul him back to relevance by finding out where he stands on rewarding companies that send jobs overseas. It's sort of like the people who don't want gays to marry (they mean "exist") because it harms the institution of marriage. Are they working hard to criminalize divorce? No? Huh.

Rhetoric on estate taxes is equally revealing. Now it's being called the "death tax," and the claim is made that "they even tax us when we die." Well, no. You're dead. Your tax-paying days are over. The people who claim to be upset that they're taxed when they die won't even need any more money where they're going. Heat is provided by the management.

It's Junior, who just got a slab of money landing on his head, and who may or may not be a worthy contributing member of society, who is being taxed. Not on what he's earned, but on the slab that just fell on his head. If you think  it's unfair for him to pay taxes on that money, you're saying it's more fair to take it out of the hide of the woman who cleans his house. Pardon me for calling this an immoral position.

I guess we could go ahead and cut taxes on everybody. But don't blame me if your poop doesn't go where you want it to.

Caesar's Cut

I hate doing my taxes. It's not the actual tax. I'm a big gooey liberal, and I can't wait for elections so I can vote for more places to send my money. Yours, too! I'll pass a parks levy and a library levy and a school levy and I'll drive my Chevy to the levy and pitch in a trunkful of cash. Send an agent over here with my bill and I'll fire off a check. Just don't make me do them.

When TurboTax first came out, I bought a copy for about twelve dollars and cranked it up. That took a while; my old PC got all belchy over that sort of thing and gassed on all morning, installing drivers and putters and I don't know what-all. There'd be a visual for the installation progress that looked like someone pushing a crayon through a capillary. It was intolerable to watch. I'd have to go away and start drinking and hope that when I came back I would find no error window or hear an orchestral chord of doom. It was always dicey. But then when everything settled down, I started feeding it data, and TurboTax methodically sent everything where it was supposed to go. It was just like what your body does automatically when you put a sandwich in it: without your even thinking about it, it sends a bit to the organs and a bit to the muscles and slabs a big old Schedule D on your rear end on its way out, and calls it a day. It was brilliant.

Then the program asked me if I wanted to print out my return. Sure! And all the worksheets for my records? Why not? I hit the button. When I saw Worksheet CXL.VI, Rendering Unto Caesar, I was alarmed, but did not know how to stop the printer, and it pooped out paper by the ream for twenty minutes, while I flapped frantically around it like Lucy Ricardo.

The next year I bought the TurboTax for twenty-five dollars and it only took about eight tries, two hours and four beers to get it installed, and it even found all my previous year's data and sucked that in. Brilliant. There were a few hitches here and there, but I was a happy customer. Good thing, too, because now I had become dependent on this software that knew where all my stuff was.

The third year TurboTax ($55) detected that I was not the simple soul I had made myself out to be, and started asking probing questions. Do you have any passive activity loss carryovers from a prior year? Well, I don't rightly know, Turb, but let me ask you this: in Flaubert's classic novel Mme. Bovary, is Emma a sophisticated aristocrat born by mistake into a bourgeois prison, or is she simply a middle-class girl obsessed with a richer life?

Turb doesn't have a sense of humor.

This year, I bought the TurboTax ($1,436) and introduced it to my new iMac ($5,333,000), which slurped the disc into the screen somewhere. I have no idea where it went, or how it was planning to find last year's data from there. Last I saw my data, they'd been incinerated inside the smoking hulk of a haunted Dell, with Windows Vista used as an accelerant. I let 'er rip and got up to hunt down some beer but only got halfway to the refrigerator when an encouraging beep sounded, with overtones of a celestial choir, and there was my software installed and my data located and everything ready to roar. Sadly, I have become even less simple. New questions arose. Did the decedent of the IRA of which you are a beneficiary turn 70-1/2 in 2008? Turb, honey? Do you know what "decedent" means? It means "no longer turning."

There was more. I decided I had a business--writing is a business, albeit not the kind in which you make money--so it had lots of questions. Do I have a home office? I thought I did, but in order to take tax advantage of that, I needed to know the square footage of my house and how much I'd spent to keep it warm, lit and relatively free of garbage. Then it was a simple matter of determining what 36/2750ths of the total of my utility bills, property tax and insurance is. And just like that, my home office turned back into a guest bedroom.

I still don't know what a cost basis is, but I do know I don't want the worksheets, I know how to say "stop that" to the printer, and I can't wait for the spring primary. I'm going to buy us a new park.