1751 Tax Paper

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Abraham Lincoln: The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

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I forgot to take the garbage can down the driveway last night. This is serious. It's packed full, and Jasper's been eyeing the large bag in the kitchen that's been sitting there for two days waiting for room in the can outside.

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Piper is pressing me to get the docs to him so The Angel can do my taxes. I'm feeling guilty because I haven't done it yet. I spent much of today sorting papers to try to pull it all together.

Over the past two months of volunteering at the tax clinics, I now feel really guilty. The clinics were to help people who earned too little to have filed taxes in the past. If they want to get that "economic stimulus" rebate, they have to file this year, even though they don't owe anything. People were coming in with no other income but the pittance they get from welfare or social security. One or at most two hunks of 1099 paper in hand, or letters with a number handwritten in a blank.

I'd heard that the rebate was $600 for an individual, and $1200 for a couple. At the last clinic I was horrified to hear that's only for people who do pay taxes. For these folks, it's only $300 and $600! My comment was that the people who need the most get the least. It doesn't seem fair.

So, pulling my paper together, I am almost embarassed to note that I have more than 17 separate sources of income. Yeah, most are only a few dollars a year, but, still, I guess it adds up. I have difficulty understanding how people make it into their 70s with no retirement, no savings, no investments, no assets. Ok, intellectually when you tell me why in any individual case I can understand, but on an emotional level I don't understand. My daughter has never held any one job more than 3 years, cycles through minimum wage and runs close to poverty level because she can't seem to settle on a career, keeps starting over, refuses to "sell herself to corporate America", and won't accept help from me, and yet when she hooked up with Hercules in her late 20s she already had a brokerage account with a respectable balance.

I guess it's in the blood. Being thrifty, I mean. (Ok, cheap.) I'm driving a used 2003 Aerio when I really want a Porsche Boxster convertable (and I can afford it - but when I think about the insurance, and the expense of repairs, and other ongoing costs, I cringe). I don't have cable and won't pay for texting on my cell phone, won't pay retail for clothing or anything else if I can help it. Daughter's car is ten years old, I think. I don't completely deprive myself - I buy me toys and anything else I want, but there's a bit of cringing in the buying, and again I cringe at the thought of ongoing costs. I like buying gifts for others because then I have the joy of the buying and the giving, but it's a one-time expenditure, and I like that a lot.

Daughter gripes about people she knows who eat steak on a hamburger budget. I eat hamburger on a steak budget. Which is better? To live for now, or for later? Or when the later becomes the now, you can't enjoy it because you've trained yourself for so long not to?

[Why am I reminded of the t-shirt I saw in the 70s? "If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself."]

And before anyone starts muttering about the difference between giving and getting, I have always given away at least 30% of the annual income from investments, to charities, friends, and family, which would not be available at all had it not been invested first.
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