As the nation staggers toward the April 17 tax-filing deadline"”otherwise known as National Crash Your Car Day"”the immovable object of a debt-financed $3.8 trillion federal budget is incentivizing the irresistible force of rapacious government to scrounge for any and all spare change in the country's cushions.
Some of these desperate collection measures are new, internationally unprecedented, and already damaging to innocent individuals and institutions. Others are mere proposals so far, or accumulations of water torture-style outrages that comparatively tax-compliant Americans have tolerated for too long. What they have in common is an utter lack of demonstrated concern for the time, privacy, and freedom of U.S. residents.
In handy list form, here are five ways Uncle Sam's tax collectors are screwing America.
5. Preposterous Foreign-Income Disclosure Rules
The IRS wants everyone with more than $10,000 in foreign-based financial institutions to cough up every last detail of every last account. Let's say (just for the sake of argument) that in 1997 you married a French woman who had previously written a few articles for a soon-to-be-defunct UK newspaper, and had opted to park her checks in a London bank for walking around money on future visits. Let's say further that she has earned enough European-based income over the ensuing 15 years to exceed that five-figure savings threshold.
Result? As of 2012, that London savings account, and every single other foreign based account you and your wife may have, must now be divulged in full"”complete with your estimation of its highest value during the previous year"”to the Internal Revenue Service.
Good luck figuring out form TD 90-22.1, by the way. My tax professional (who charged me more than $1,000 for her services, though it was worth every penny), shrugged, and gave me a yellow highlighter so that maybe I could shed light on the relevant verbiage of TD 90-22.1 and its rich cousin, form 8938. Even the Government Accountability Office has trouble; "Extent of Duplication Not Currently Known, but Requirements Can Be Clarified" was the subtitle on its recent paper on the dueling FBARs (foreign bank account requirements).
The important thing to realize is that by failing to cough up each and every detail of accounts that are filled with your legitimately earned and (in my case) already taxed money, you are subjecting yourself to a $100,000 fine and up to five years in prison.
If you happen to have some money overseas, and are nervous about the U.S. government's ability to harass or imprison you, you're probably better off burying the cash in a can. Or depositing it in a country that doesn't care about playing by Uncle Sam's rules. Which brings us to....
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If you're going to whore your articles for clicks, at least give us a nice slideshow with funny pictures like everyone else does.
What's with the dearth of alt-text? And you forgot to pimp your book. Pimp it, yo! It ain't gonna pimp itself.
Reminder to those wondering why you get until tomorrow night to file your taxes: Reparations Day (aka, Emancipation Day) in DC. On this day in 1862, Honest Abe signed the law granting both emancipation and reparations for slavery.
Ironic that we get to fork over a bunch of the hard-earned fruits of our labor to the government under threat of imprisonment on "emancipation day".
Well sure as hell not because of Patriots Day and our successful tax rebellion.
Specifically, it freed slaves in DC, not nationwide.
True dat! It was a little late for South Carolina.
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."
Abraham Lincoln.
It's amazing how the textbooks never quote this from him while making him out to be one of the best presidents in history.
OT: I've found that you can become fairly educated in a public school by doing almost exactly the opposite of whatever they taught you.
They don't quote it because it ruins the narrative they use to rally the next generation behind the big-government banner.
Good luck figuring out form TD 90-22.1, by the way. My tax professional (who charged me more than $1,000 for her services, though it was worth every penny), shrugged, and gave me a yellow highlighter so that maybe I could shed light on the relevant verbiage of TD 90-22.1
Good lord! If your high dollar tax professional is perplexed by the FBAR (AKA TD 90-22.1), you need to seriously think about replacing her. I've been filing those things for years - and filling them out myself. Takes all of five minutes. (Which is not to say that I like the idea of having to do so.)
It probably takes all of five mintues because you've been filing those for years. How long did it take you to figure it out the very first time you saw it (including time spent compiling relevant information and double-checking everything)?
Ten minutes.
OK, then, you're either at the 'genius' end of the tax preparer bell curve or you have a very cavalier attitude towards tax filing. For the rest of us, new tax forms tend to induce a great deal of anxiety and confusion.
Bullshit - I am neither. The problem is here is that you don't know what you're talking about. Name, address, etc. Name, address and country of bank, acct number, max value of acct for year, signature. *That's it*. Don't believe me? - look at the form.
I fill out the same form every year using Turbitax, and TurboTax screws it up every year. I have to go in and check each field to see that they are correctly entered, and then print it out separately from the return. Takes about 15 minutes for ONE account, in France.
I am waiting to get a letter from my French bank that they don't want me any more. That would make it IMPOSSIBLE to live here, because a bank account is so important to just exist. If you bounce a check here, the French national bank revokes your banking priveleges for a year, which is an extremely nasty penalty.
It would also be IMPOSSIBLE for me to sell my house and move back to the US without a bank account.
I fill out the same form every year using Turbitax, and TurboTax screws it up every year. I have to go in and check each field to see that they are correctly entered, and then print it out separately from the return. Takes about 15 minutes for ONE account, in France.
I am waiting to get a letter from my French bank that they don't want me any more. That would make it IMPOSSIBLE to live here, because a bank account is so important to just exist. If you bounce a check here, the French national bank revokes your banking priveleges for a year, which is an extremely nasty penalty.
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