Thank you, Mr President, for your useless rebates last year. You gave us that money last year, and this year, you're taking it away it from us. We can really fucking afford that, you clueless politician.
We usually itemize our taxes, but this year, because of trying to get a loan modification on our mortgage, we didn't have enough mortgage interest to have enough deductions to itemize. So those two $250 rebates we got were deducted from the $800 making work pay credit. Every year we've gotten money back on our federal taxes, but not this year. This year, we have to pay in, and the main reason we have to pay in is because of that damned "making work pay" credit and those fucking $250 rebates from last year. Yeah, it really paid for DH to work last year, didn't it? It sure as fuck didn't pay us for him to work, but it paid the government for him to work. Instead of us getting a tax refund, not only do they get our rebates from last year back, but they also get more money from us.
That sure as shit isn't doing anything to help the middle class, I can tell you that right fucking now (can you tell I'm just a little bit pissed off about this?). I mean, FFS, we're not affluent, by any means. It took DH's job, his Navy retirement, AND my SSDI for us to make less than $60K last year (and DH pays taxes on his Navy retirement too).
We're better off than a lot of other people who make the same amount of money as we do, since we don't have any kids to support and we do have good health care through the VA and TriCare/Medicare (not to mention the fact that DH has a job and hasn't gotten laid off or let go, thank Maude). But if we have to pay in, I can imagine what's happening to other people this year when they go to have their taxes done, and the rude surprise they're going to get when they find out they have to deduct those rebates, and I really feel for them.
I'm beginning to be damned glad I didn't vote for Obama (I'll let you guess who was my write-in candidate, and I think she would be doing a hell of a lot better job than Obama right about now). I'm tired of being lied to, ignored, and thrown under the bus when it comes to campaign promises made and not kept. I thought Obama was going to be different, but I should have known better. First and foremost, he's a politician, and worst of all, he's a Chicago politician (and that's the worst thing you can call a politician, IMO). I used to live in Illinois, and I don't know many people there who have a good opinion of Chicago politicians (unless they're trying to curry favor with them, of course). I should have remembered that politicians will tell you whatever they think you want to hear, and make whatever promises they think it will take to get them elected, and once they're elected, it's "Hooray for me, and fuck you, I don't need you now, but I'll keep stringing you along, just in case." It's not even a choice between the lesser of two evils any more, both parties are out to fuck us all over (unless we have a lobbyist with beau-coup bucks to pay them to do things for us instead of to us). Cynical? Me? Whatever gave you that idea?
Friday, January 29, 2010
6 comments:
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The stimulus payments were "early refunds", the amount based on previous income and filing status. You did receive the money, just earlier. Another factor that may have impacted you is not having enough withholding from the taxable incomes. Sometimes, the withholding amounts get decreased by TPTB to help stimulate the economy as well. Othertimes, the tax percentage comes up short when all income is added up at the end of the year. These same issues occurred in 2002/2003 when Bush sent out a similar payment to help the economy after 9/11. Our taxes support a lot of programs (including two that you participate in now, and possibly could for more years than you paid in) - but I agree it's not a perfect system. Imagine if the only way to get a pension or disability was to buy into private policies.
ReplyDelete(PS. Check your closing statement to see if there are any taxes or interest that you missed)
The thing is, those "early refunds" didn't help us. There wasn't anything we needed to buy with them, DH's went into savings and mine, well, I didn't even see it (it went on an overpayment I got on SSI from 10 years ago that I had forgotten about).
ReplyDeleteI save everything in a tax file throughout the year and then it all goes to H&R Block when they do our taxes. We would have had enough deductions to itemize if we had made all the house payments last year, but skipping 4 of them was the only way to get the mortgage company to give us a loan modification (and that cost us over $4K in interest alone).
It sounds, then, like not getting as much back in taxes is the result of financial choices you made. Whether those early refunds went into savings or to an overpayment, they were still refunds, even if they did not help you. Karen is right to point out that several programs that you are using are funded by taxes, so it does not make much sense to rail against them, particularly when you chose not to make house payments in order to participate in loan modification (and this administration has pushed to help make those loan modifications more accessible). That was a financial trade-off, and I would guess the modification helps you more than itemizing would have. The vitriol here seems completely misplaced.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't get the loan modification because of any program the President instituted, because we didn't qualify for any of those programs. And the only reason DH gets his medical care through the VA is because he spent 20 years in the Navy, so I think he deserves it (and I get TriCare because I'm married to him). I get SSDI because I'm disabled and I paid my taxes into Medicare. So those programs that we use that are paid for by taxes, are paid for by OUR taxes (and my husband is still working and paying taxes, so I think my vitriol is not misplaced, thank you very much).
ReplyDeleteIf we hadn't stopped making payments on our mortgage, we wouldn't have gotten a loan modification at all, because as long as we were making the house payments, our mortgage company wouldn't even talk to us about a loan modification. So yes, the financial decisions were ours, but we were between a rock and a hard place. And we didn't ask for those fucking early payments on the rebates, we didn't need them, didn't want them, and would have sent them back if we could have (but that's not allowed, when the government gives you an early rebate and you qualify for it, you don't have the choice to opt out of getting it). The government doesn't care if those early rebates put you in a financial bind later on, all they care about is that they think they're helping you now (yeah, right).
I'm with you, girl. We didn't get any early refunds or rebates or anything, and our decidedly lower middle class taxes went up a lot.
ReplyDeleteI don't see him doing anything to dial back the lying, either.
Wow! I feel much better now! If it was an early refund, then why isn't the amount reduced, vice deducted. A refund is money back, I don't know what the hell the crap we got, but it didn't help for crap.
ReplyDelete