Thursday, April 13, 2017

Death and Taxes

Someone said that the only two things that are inevitable are death and taxes.

I ain't dead yet, but the tax man is doing his part.  I have to stop and thank God that I have my health, and Milady and I are enjoying the fruits of our success.  Our kids are grown, the grandkids are healthy, and that everyone has a good roof ad enough to eat.

Grandma and I still work, make a paycheck, and parlay two careers and a couple of little retirement accounts into a pretty comfortable life.  But, we have no deductions and the tax-man whacks us hard.

This year, as last year, I am paying more in taxes than I made for many years.  And, even with all that withholding, I still get the patriotic chore of writing the IRS a healthy check early next week.

For what I have, I am thankful, but I'd feel a whole lot better if the tax man didn't take such a wet bite out of my checking account.

Just damn!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep, damnable taxes. We have two kids, and this is the 1st year we lost the $1000 deduction on one of them (turned 18 last year). That refund we received has been nibbled down some - ouch ! I used my portion to pay house insurance which is due next month - good thing I've been putting back some in the cookie jar for that. Still making dollars, but the dollar doesn't stretch as much as it used to - EVERYTHING is more expensive and bank interest on that money isn't bupkis !!

I feekz your pain.

Javahead said...

Does anyone like paying them?

I'm grateful that I have a well-paid job, and that despite everything that the Federal and California state government do to tax it we still are able to add to our retirement savings, so we can see the light at the end of the tunnel a few more years down the line.

But looking at our income tax returns and see that we pay more in taxes every year than we earned, total, any of the first few years we were married really hurts. Especially since I can't convince myself that all of it - or even most of it - is being well spent.

Flugelman said...

That's the rub. How is it being spent? So much waste and abuse that we read about every day, yet nothing is being done to change it. Got back a piddling amount every year after retirement until taking on a low paying part time job just to stay busy and outta the pool hall. That small income kicked me up a notch in the tax tables and I wound up paying $8k plus for the last two years. Makes me wonder if it's even worth it. ARRRRRRRRRRRGGHHH!