Yesterday I read Naked Lunch, then I did my taxes. I finished up the evening by reading a good portion of The Trial.
Burroughs and Kafka were amusing and uplifting. The IRS forms were a confused, bewildering graveyard of hope.
When reviewing potential deductions, I felt like the under-privileged child allowed to tour the rich man's house and see what he can never have.
Cyndi and I had a long discussion wondering if I should call her a dependent. In the end I did. In the end it made zero difference.
Take the number in row 47 and divide by two. Add the number to itself. Replace the number in row 47 with this new number. Repeat.
Oh, there is one nice IRS feature. At a certain point you find a comment something like "to help reduce paperwork and the time you spend doing your taxes, the IRS can calculate your taxes for you". To determine if you are eligble, you have to download a form and then download the instructions. You spend 30 minutes completing the form to find you are not eligible.
But to be fair to the IRS, there is a small group of people who can let the IRS "calculate their taxes for them". So if you are in this very small set, what exactly does the IRS do? Well, they look in the tax table to determine your tax. That is all. You have to fill out all the rest of the forms, do all the rest of the calculations. The only easy part of the whole process is to look in the tax table. Gee, thanks guys. You saved me nearly 12 seconds.
In the end it came to this: take my income and multiply by .28 and that was my tax. All the rest was folderol. It was the equivalent of making your dog do a bunch of stupid tricks and then not giving him a treat. I want to bite my master's ankle.