Life In 19x19

Tis the season here in the US.

Tax season, that is.

Someone left this voice message on my home phone this morning,
Tuesday Mar 25, 2015 around 08:35 am.

I used an iPhone voice app to record it off my ancient home phone.

( The original file extension was .mpa but the filter rejected it,
so I renamed it to .mpg and it was accepted. )

BTW, IRS PSA

I regularly get ones for "Microsoft Windows Malware Service" and "Mastercard-Visa Fraud Division" and similar. It must work since it's been going on for a year and a half or more here.

Hi Boidhre,

Luckily for me I haven't received those voice messages yet.

Some years ago, they passed some anti-spam laws,
and the amount of junk calls seemed to have dropped.
But every campaign season, they flare up.

EdLee wrote:Hi Boidhre,

Luckily for me I haven't received those voice messages yet.

It's live calls here. I have someone who cannot pronounce my (common Irish) name trying to tell me they're working for an Irish bank. It's eh, annoying. At least I can tell I can hang up within a couple of seconds.

And in related news:

The weird tax trick the IRS doesn't want you to know about.

Well, in keeping with the topic of the thread you may find this interesting reading. I found it two days ago.

http://www.dailypaul.com/335548/income- ... -you-think

DrStraw wrote:Well, in keeping with the topic of the thread you may find this interesting reading. I found it two days ago.

http://www.dailypaul.com/335548/income- ... -you-think

To correct an error in that article, the British chancellor has not abolished the annual tax return, he has said the paper version of it will be abolished and it must be done online (which is currently a choice). I've not looked at the details but I wouldn't welcome that announcement with unbridled joy as previous reforms of electronicisation to the tax system for businesses have meant one has to use various complicated formats which can require purchase of expensive accountancy software, whereas before one could submit paper accounts.

(Btw when I first read that I thought he was complaining about having to pay 9% of his gross income as tax, to which I thought Boo hoo you lucky sod!, this year I'm paying about 50%)

Btw when I first read that I thought he was complaining about having to pay 9% of his gross income as tax, to which I thought Boo hoo you lucky sod!, this year I'm paying about 50%)

Well the highest rate is only 45% and that only kicks in at £150,000, though the 40% rate kicks in at about £40,000 which seems to mean the really big earners are getting away with murder.

But the real problem is that this is only income tax. In addition we pay 25% VAT on almost everything, there's a huge slew of very high excise duties on petrol and alcohol, there's the whopping council tax, there's stamp tax on house sales, inheritance tax, air passenger tax, etc etc etc etc etc. Even the BBC licence fee amounts to a tax. It is therefore closer to the truth to say that, except for those lucky enough "earn" enough to shave off a surplus that can go under the mattress, we all pay 100% tax. Poor sods!

Uberdude wrote:

DrStraw wrote:Well, in keeping with the topic of the thread you may find this interesting reading. I found it two days ago.

http://www.dailypaul.com/335548/income- ... -you-think

To correct an error in that article, the British chancellor has not abolished the annual tax return, he has said the paper version of it will be abolished and it must be done online (which is currently a choice). I've not looked at the details but I wouldn't welcome that announcement with unbridled joy as previous reforms of electronicisation to the tax system for businesses have meant one has to use various complicated formats which can require purchase of expensive accountancy software, whereas before one could submit paper accounts.

(Btw when I first read that I thought he was complaining about having to pay 9% of his gross income as tax, to which I thought Boo hoo you lucky sod!, this year I'm paying about 50%)

The Irish online system for that just has you log into the Revenue site and fill out an electronic version and submit it on there. The business portal is compatible with your standard expensive bits of accounting software but you can file most/all forms manually on there if you want.

John Fairbairn wrote:

Btw when I first read that I thought he was complaining about having to pay 9% of his gross income as tax, to which I thought Boo hoo you lucky sod!, this year I'm paying about 50%)

Well the highest rate is only 45% and that only kicks in at £150,000, though the 40% rate kicks in at about £40,000 which seems to mean the really big earners are getting away with murder.

But the real problem is that this is only income tax. In addition we pay 25% VAT on almost everything, there's a huge slew of very high excise duties on petrol and alcohol, there's the whopping council tax, there's stamp tax on house sales, inheritance tax, air passenger tax, etc etc etc etc etc. Even the BBC licence fee amounts to a tax. It is therefore closer to the truth to say that, except for those lucky enough "earn" enough to shave off a surplus that can go under the mattress, we all pay 100% tax. Poor sods!

I was counting stamp duty (I've just bought a house), income tax and national insurance to reach that 50% level of my gross income paid as tax, but wasn't counting VAT (it's not 25% yet!), council tax, excise duties and the others so including those it'd be even more. But is the licence fee a tax? I don't pay it as I don't watch broadcast TV.

In Finland most regular income earners don't have to file anything. Everyone gets a prefilled return, and if there is nothing to add, nothing needs to be done. I believe this covers majority of people.

In Finland the TV licence was recently changed to YLE-tax (YLE = Finnish equivalent of BBC). Everyone pays it, regardless of whether you watch TV or not.

tj86430 wrote:In Finland most regular income earners don't have to file anything. Everyone gets a prefilled return, and if there is nothing to add, nothing needs to be done. I believe this covers majority of people.

In Finland the TV licence was recently changed to YLE-tax (YLE = Finnish equivalent of BBC). Everyone pays it, regardless of whether you watch TV or not.

Yeah, here you only need to submit forms if you've income outside of your main job, are self-employed or want to claim tax reliefs. We're also bringing in the same kind of "broadcasting tax" to replace the TV licence as too many homes forego the TV and it's an annoying tax to enforce apparently.

The marginal rate (i.e. tax on next Euro earned) for someone earning €34k a year is 51% from the usual income tax (40%), social insurance (4%) and an additional income tax (7%). For anyone earning over €70k approx it's 52%. We've been discussing a third tax band but there's a lot of debate over it as most suggested levels would catch a lot of dual income families. The issue of wealthy people avoiding tax here mostly revolves around incomes not covered by income tax, social insurance etc.

Some years ago, they passed some anti-spam laws, and the amount of junk calls seemed to have dropped.

Of course, the legislators exempt political campaign robo-calls from these laws, and every election season we get tons of recorded messages imploring us to vote for or against candidates or issues.

In Sweden, families argue about taxes over dinner, or maybe it's just my family?
Idk, taxes may be not fun, but try to think of it this way, If you have nothing to pay, you would probably have no house to sleep at, clothes to wear, food to eat, you get the picture. (Unless you have a really rich relative lol)

janne wrote:In Sweden, families argue about taxes over dinner, or maybe it's just my family?

I've yet to meet a nationality that doesn't like to complain about taxes. They're either too low on someone or too high on them.