An Open Letter to the $%*#@ Government

Dear Federal and State Government Yahoos,

I was finally able to complete our tax returns the other day. I would have been done with them much earlier, but I had to wait for you folks from the California Franchise Tax Board to finalize a form. You know the one – the Passive Activity Loss Limitation form.

That makes a ton of sense, since that form in no way applies to the activity that was in question – our rental property. On my taxes I told you that we were active participants in the managing of the rental and we didn’t have losses. So naturally, we needed to delay our filing by two weeks while you let the ink dry on the form that is for people who had losses from a rental they weren’t actively managing.

Once we were able to fill in that handy form with a long column of zeros and N/A’s, we finally e-filed our state and federal returns. As you are aware, I don’t like giving you interest-free loans, but I also don’t like having to send you money at the end of the year either, so we adjust our withholdings accordingly to get a small return back from both of you.

As you federal government whackos might recall, you attempted to buy my love this year with my own money. You sent us six separate paper checks in the mail, totaling half of our sizeable child tax credit we get for being foolish enough to let our three large teenage boys live in our house and eat our food.

Again, I’m not sure how sending me money early that was going to be a credit on my taxes changes my net financial situation, other than certainly causing me a financial hardship if I was foolish enough to spend it.

I was not that foolish.

Since you took it upon yourself to send me a tax credit early, in a turn of events that no one could have seen coming, I actually owed you money with my tax return. I know you can’t see it right now, but rest assured I’m making my shocked face.

I, unfoolishly, kept all the money you sent me, so sending you what I “owe” will be no problem. What was a problem, however, was your tone at the end of my return. You printed me four quarterly tax pre-payment coupons for next year with my return, each one for a fourth of what I “owe” you this year.

OK, that’s one idiotic thing, but what really was even more ridiculous was the stern warning you included with my useless payment vouchers:

If you expect to owe more than $1000 next year, you may be subject to underpayment penalties if you fail to send adequate quarterly payments.

Um, excuse me? If I EXPECT to owe more than $1000?? I expected YOU to owe ME $1000, not the other way around. The only reason I “owe” you money this year is because you chose to send me a bunch of it early! How the hell am I supposed to expect anything from now on?

I have no idea what you’re planning to do, and you sure as hell didn’t ask me if I wanted your pretty green “please love us” checks to be mailed to my house. I might owe you twice as much next year if you get a wild hair and send me ALL of my child tax credit early.

Or are you only planning on sending me a quarter of it, due to budget cuts? Or maybe the whole early child tax credit thing is too passé and you’re planning to attempt to endear yourselves to me some other way?

Maybe you’ll send me a puppy this year instead of checks? I would then have to figure out the street value of the puppy to decide if I should be sending quarterly payments, and how much they should be.

What if you decide to go a little more exotic than a puppy and you send me something like a baby giraffe? That could really seal the deal on gaining my trust and affection, but it would be much harder to gauge its value.

You can see my dilemma here…

In conclusion, I will not be sending you any estimated tax payments over the course of this year, and I wish you would all resign.

With my sincerest disapproval,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Tax and Spray Policy

It’s that time of year again, folks. That’s right, it’s time to shop online for more adorable masks that match your outfits and hoard that toilet paper.

Oh, and taxes.

Right about this time every year I buy another copy of TurboTax, because I’m too cheap to pay a professional to do my taxes, but not brave (or stupid) enough to attempt to figure out all the forms on my own.

This will be an especially challenging year, since, starting this past July, Washington decided to send me half of my child tax credit early, in the form of six paper checks that arrived one after the other, each month.

I still haven’t figured out how giving me a tax credit early, before I file my taxes, helps my net financial situation, but I’m sure that it had absolutely nothing to do with politics. After all, the tax code is based solely on reasonable, logical, and completely fair math.

However, if I read the rules correctly on 2021 Form 1040-EZ-PresidentBidenLovesYou-4Ever, I may owe more taxes now, since I received some tax dollars in advance.

As I understand it, if I have spent all that money already on – let’s just say, hypothetically – a pair of sweet used 1997 Yamaha Jet Skis, and a Traeger Pro Series 34 Wood Pellet Grill with the optional polyurethane wheels and SmokeMaster bronze lid, I might need to actually return one of my children to the government if the math doesn’t come out in my favor.

That’s a little worrisome, but what really has me the most concerned right now is TurboTax’s recent ad campaigns. Have you seen the one with the coffee spit takes?

The scene: Two guys sitting at a table. One is named Steven. He’s drinking coffee.

Announcer: Steven, did you know TurboTax is free, no matter how you want to file?

[Steven turns his head to the right and spits his coffee all over his friend.]

Steven [looking back into the camera]: I don’t believe that

Announcer: It’s true. Anyone with a simple tax return can get help from an expert, for free.

[Steven again spits his coffee all over his friend.]

Steven: That can’t be true.

Announcer: It is. And with TurboTax Live, our experts will even do your taxes for you, for free.

[Steven, for the third time, spits his coffee all over his friend.]

Friend [utterly soaked in Steven’s coffee, hair dripping]: Honestly, that sounds amazing.

Announcer: For a limited time, TurboTax is free for simple returns, no matter how you file.

I mean, sure, I’m a tad concerned that since my tax returns aren’t “simple” because I’m not a single, apartment-renting Starbuck’s employee with no dependents and no financial investments of any kind, so I actually have to pay for my copy of TurboTax, that I’m footing the bill for all this “free tax return” nonsense. But that’s not what has me really worried.

What made me cringe and fear for the future of our great nation was the disclaimer across the bottom of the screen during the commercial:

Spray simulated. Do not attempt.

It’s kind of a toss up actually, now that I think about it. Am I more worried that we have a government that will try to buy my love with my own money, hoping I don’t notice, or that lawyers legitimately feel the legal need to warn me not to spit coffee on other people?

The answer is yes.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

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Duty-Free Shopping, Perhaps

I want to point out to the wonderful and kind folks over at the California Franchise Tax Board and the amazingly benevolent and totally cool (and not at all “universally disliked”) people at the IRS that the following tale could be completely hypothetical in nature.

Let’s just say, for the sake of telling a fun story, that my family recently traveled via our Chevrolet Suburban up to Oregon, where we have other family. We potentially traveled there to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. It was, hypothetically, a great trip!

If Son Number Two had happened to catch wind of a smokin’ deal that Verizon was having where he could somehow trade his current iPhone in as long as the screen wasn’t cracked and magically get the latest iPhone 13 for free, he would have been really excited about that.

The one catch to getting a “free” iPhone here in California with a possible Verizon program would be that you would still have to pay the sales tax on the $900 “value” (using that term ironically, Apple) of the phone. That could, in theory, run you as much as $92 in tax in some parts of the Golden State.

If Number Two happened to hear about this program the night before we left for the alleged trip, he would have been pestering me to take him to a Verizon store the minute we had a free minute. I would have buckled under his teenage endurance for pestering and taken him to a possible Verizon location close to our accommodations on Sunday.

We then might have been informed about the true nature of this hypothetically amazing deal, whereas every one of the family’s lines potentially had an $800 or $900 credit for a brand-new phone, due to our possible customer loyalty.

If that had been the case, we surely would have all arrived at that same Verizon store on Monday, fifteen or so minutes before they opened, ready to upgrade all of our phones for free. And during the ostensibly fictional transaction, we may have discovered that my wife’s phone was ineligible due to a previously unnoticed small crack in the corner of the screen.

Getting some fictional advice from a helpful Verizon employee we’ll call Mike, we would then have tracked down a brand-new older model phone, still in the box, being sold, potentially, four miles away on Facebook Marketplace, and jumped in the car to race over and buy it with cash for far less than the sales tax would have been had this alleged transaction been taking place one state to the south.

And after spending, potentially, three hours of our Monday morning at the Verizon store and/or on Janet’s porch paying cash for a phone her daughter ended up never using, we might have walked out with five top-of-the-line, brand-spankin’-new cell phones for a hypothetical grand total cost of $175 in data transfer fees and cash for Janet’s daughter’s phone she didn’t want.

I would have been very pleased, ostensibly, because what we would have avoided, in theory, was upward of $450 in California sales taxes by having this entire theoretical situation occur on the fertile soil of our friendly neighbors to the north.

And if I had purchased a new wallet-style phone case for my wife on Amazon Prime and had it shipped to our Oregon accommodations, I would have, in theory, also avoided paying any sales tax on that.

Had any of this actually taken place, rest assured that come January, I would be reporting those sales to the IRS and the California Tax Board so that I made darn sure to pay 100% of my fair share of the tax revenue they so richly deserve. But, of course, as stated, this tale is speculative. Merely a “for-instance.”

Later that week I also hypothetically put new sales tax-free tires on the Suburban. They rode, in theory, quite nicely back down south.

Duty-free has a nice relaxing hum to it.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

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A Very Census-tive Subject

I received a letter from the United States Census Bureau the other day, about how my address had been randomly selected to take the American Community Survey. Oh joy.

In the handy pamphlet of FAQ’s under, “Do I have to answer the questions on the American Community Survey?” I was thrilled to read the answer, “Yes. Your response to this survey is required by law under a random title and code section number we just made up for this pamphlet because no one will respond if we don’t threaten them. Also, there will be penalties and fees.”

“We estimate this survey will take about 40 minutes to complete.”

Yay!

Then, in various different paragraphs, on various different portions of the pamphlets, letters, and website, they told me these three concerning things:

1. By law, the Census Bureau can only use your responses to produce statistics.

2. We may combine your answers with information that you gave to other agencies to enhance the statistical uses of these data.

3. Use of this system indicates your consent to collection, monitoring, recording, and use of the information that you provide for any lawful government purpose.

Hmm…

So what you are saying, Census Bureau, is that you guys are only allowed to use my answers to produce nationally-vital statistics regarding how many bathrooms are in my house, but you have access to answers I gave other agencies that didn’t make that same promise, and oh, also, anything I tell you can be used for any reason, by any government agency, for anything that someone decided to write on page 16,135 of a 17,000-page bill that you voted into law.

Interesting…

Here’s why that concerns me. You told me this would take forty minutes of my life, but around minute twenty or so you asked me very specific questions about my income. And my wife’s income. And the specific sources of that income. And the specific amounts of income from each of those sources.

In order for me to answer those questions EXACTLY like I did on my taxes, I would have to spend an hour or so going through my last tax return, which would mean it would take me eighty minutes to get to the middle of a forty-minute survey.

So, I guessed.

But here’s the problem. There is one currently lawful government agency in particular that loves exact numbers and loves reported numbers to match up exactly, especially when those numbers have to do with income – The Department of Agriculture.

No wait, it’s the IRS.

Your survey forced me to guess about my income, and you might be sharing those guesses with the IRS? I ask you, Census Bureau workers in charge of the American Community Survey, would you want the IRS seeing your reported income numbers for last year varying from place to place? Do you have any idea what an IRS audit is like? Do you want to go through one?

Not unless you are suicidal, which, now that I think about it could very well be the case since the career path you have chosen ended up at the Census Bureau – the lamest and most boring of all the Bureaus. Chin up.

I may have had more time to dig out my tax return and get the numbers right if y’all could somehow figure out a way to shorten your survey.

I happen to have a few suggestions for you:

You asked about my heritage, to which I answered European. You asked about my wife’s heritage, to which I also answered European because we’re both white and we’re all pretty sure her grandpa was making up the whole “part American Indian” thing just to get a discount on tribal liquor and cigarettes.

Previously, you had asked about our kids and how they came into our family. I responded (individually for all three) that they were natural-born children between me and my wife. You then later asked (individually for all three) about their heritage. That question seemed entirely unnecessary given my earlier answers, but since you gave me text boxes to complete, I went with Pacific Islander (other), Andalusian, and Guatemalan, in an effort to help them get into college someday.

You told me that my address was selected at random to participate in the survey, then asked me approximately sixty questions about my house, including number of bedrooms, bathrooms, general rooms that were not a foyer or hallway, lot size, year built, what I think it would sell for right now, and on and on. The only thing you didn’t ask about was the color. (It’s beige, by the way, like everything you own, Census Bureau workers.)

Have any of you ever heard of Zillow? You have my address. Just plug it in and you get all the information, and it will all be correct, because I won’t be guessing!

And speaking of information you already have access to, just get my tax return! It has every answer to all your financial questions, all your car questions, the household questions, the employment questions, as well as the questions about whether any of us are deaf or blind.

And speaking of the questions about our physical limitations, I wasn’t really sure how to answer some of those, so I just did my best.

Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, does Son Number One have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?

I’m not sure if being fourteen years old qualifies as a physical, mental, or emotion condition, or if it qualifies as all three, but I answered an emphatic yes.

Do you have serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs?

I’m forty-seven, so this is a definite yes on days I have gone running, but only a “sort of” on most other days. I went with yes.

Does Son Number Three have difficulty dressing or bathing?

You already know he’s eleven years old. Of course he does! All three boys do.

Do you people even have kids? Who wrote these ridiculous questions?

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen

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Taxination Pending

Boy, am I in trouble. And not the usual kind of “you left the toilet seat up again,” or “you’re not watching the boys closely enough and they started a fire on the sidewalk again” kind of trouble I’m normally in. This is much worse. I’m in trouble with the IRS.

I know what you’re thinking. All those years of claiming the neighborhood kids as dependents every time they ate a snack at our house finally caught up to me. You might be right. Or maybe it was claiming the dog as a business expense since I bounce book ideas off her? Who knows? All I know is it’s serious.

I received an official phone call from a mechanical robot voice the other day. It’s even worse than I thought. The IRS has obviously implemented Terminator-type robot agents to do their wet work. “Taxinators,” if you will…

The Taxinator robot didn’t even wait for me to say hello. It just got right to the point.

Hi, this is officer Magnus calling from Washington, D.C. with the criminal division of the IRS.

Holy crap. The “criminal division.” More like the execution division. I’ve seen the Terminator movies. Those silver robots are ruthless. They literally have no ruth whatsoever.

Taxinator Magnus may have started cordially, but the one-sided conversation quickly took a hard edge.

The matter as of hand is extremely time-sensitive and urgent, as after audit we found that there was a fraud and misconduct on your tax which you are hiding from the federal government.

Hmm… Taxinator Magnus’s American English Grammar and Idioms chip seems to be malfunctioning a bit. Maybe it got damaged in an IRS Criminal Division shootout?

Be that as it may, I am deeply concerned that there is a fraud and misconduct on my tax. But, I have to wonder… if I’m really hiding it from the federal government, then how do they know about it? Probably some kind of special next-level Taxinator computer processing tax fraud and misconduct algorithm. Who can tell with these type of things?

This need to be rectify immediately, so do return the call as soon as you receive the message.

Boy, again, it really seems like, given the existence of all this futuristic Taxinator malfeasance-sniffing software, they would be able to fix that grammar chip. Besides my internal need to rectify the tense of his verbs, agent Magnus hung up before I could figure out exactly what he wanted me to do.

I realize “the matter as of hand” is extremely time-sensitive and urgent, but am I supposed to return his call now, or wait for an unmentioned second message? I mean, he said call back as soon as I receive the message. Not this message.

On the one hand, I don’t want to make my fraud and misconduct problems worse by accidentally ignoring the Taxinator’s instructions. On the other hand, I don’t want to anger a six-foot-tall metal-alloy killing and auditing machine by not following its instructions to the letter.

As a writer, I guess I am duty-bound to follow the grammatically correct path. So, I’ll just fortify the front door, make an emergency escape plan to fall back to the steel mill, and wait patiently for another official message from Washington D.C.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

SWITCHEROO

If you have been on a freeway in the last 20 years, I think you’ll agree that we need a better solution to the obvious problem of rush hour traffic congestion. You may be someone who believes that the gasoline automobile is a detriment to the environment in some way, or you may be someone who just really doesn’t like only going 7 MPH on a road that was designed for 70 MPH. You may even be both. Whatever your point of view, I think we can all agree that there are just too many cars on the freeways during commute hours.

It seems pretty obvious at this point that our governments – on a city, state or federal level – have become far too cumbersome to do much of anything worthwhile on a public works basis anymore. I doubt any government entity anywhere could get a 10-foot by 10-foot backyard redwood deck built inside of a year, so simply building us some new or wider freeways to relieve the congestion is probably out of the question.

Fortunately, as with most of life’s little quandaries, I have a plan. It’s called Smidge’s Wonton Interstate Traffic Congestion Household Employee Relocation and Optimization Operation, or SWITCHEROO. And, like almost every other aspect of your life, the IRS can help with this, too. The fact that we must drive to work is not going to go away, so let’s all just severely decrease the amount of miles we need to drive. The IRS already has very detailed records of who goes to work, where they work, and where they live, so the math is almost done already. We simply link up the IRS databases with the new SWITCHEROO algorithm, and let the computer tell us where to go.

Here’s how it will work: The computer will crunch the data and find matched pairs of gainfully employed people. To keep things on a somewhat equal footing, the computer will match men with men and women with women. I’ll explain why in a minute. The algorithm will note that Joe Blow works within one mile of John Smith’s house, and John works within one mile of Joe’s house, but they both live over twenty miles away from their own jobs. Since Joe could be the CEO of a bank, and John could be in charge of the sour cream gun at a Taco Bell, switching jobs doesn’t make any sense. I mean, can you imagine if a bank had someone in charge who was making risky decisions? Unthinkable!

The smart thing to do is to have Joe and John switch houses.

Now, this program is meant to ease freeway congestion, not to cause a nationwide family upheaval, so the families will stay put. Only the workers will move. This is why we have matched men with men and women with women. Joe and John will switch houses, and inherit whatever family situation comes with the house. John may be a lifelong bachelor who suddenly finds himself with a wife and three kids. Joe may instantly become single again after many years of marriage. Who knows what new and exciting home life may await you when you get your SWITCHEROO relocation notice in the mail!

Every attempt will be made to match the switching pair’s ages as well, but there can be no guarantees. It will be quite a challenge just to keep the pairs the same sex, so age may become an issue in some instances. But what is life without fun challenges, right? The twenty-one-year-old single girl from the big city may suddenly find herself as the mother of a nineteen-year-old. If that teenager happens to be a girl, a wonderful friendship could result. If the teenager is male, all we can do is just hope his father has control of the situation.

Suzy, the twenty-something newlywed may suddenly find herself married to Fred, the eighty-something widowed Wal-Mart greeter. In that case, I think we all need to look on the bright side and say, good news for Fred!

Besides the age issue, sexual orientation is simply too complicated a subject to be entered as a parameter in the SWITCHEROO program. Also, as far as I know, the government wouldn’t have any record of this kind of personal data anyway, would they? Probably not. As with all large-scale operations such as this, there will be some unavoidable hiccups. A husband and father of four kids may suddenly find himself living with a gay man. Again, I think it’s best to look upon these unforeseen consequences as fun little challenges. This could be an opportunity for both of them to start dating again, or an opportunity for one of them to discover a whole new lifestyle. Who knows!

Besides the fun new interpersonal relationships that will develop from the program, an unexpected and pleasing change in your financial situation may result as well. Since the IRS has loads of data on your finances, as with the age issue, the SWITCHEROO program will make every effort to match income levels whenever possible. We must not lose sight of the main goal of the program, however, which is traffic elimination. For that reason, the program will optimize the moves based first on commute distance, and then attempt to factor in all the other ancillary issues such as age and tax bracket. Again, I think we need to keep sight of the goal, and take whatever disparities are inadvertently caused in stride.

Your 850-square-foot dark and gloomy apartment might suddenly become a sprawling 8000-square-foot estate house with a full-time maid. On the other hand, your overwhelming $5000 monthly mortgage payment might instantly become a trifling $150/month space fee for your new double-wide at Shady Acres Mobile Estates. It will be important to focus on the positives as we move forward with this invaluable operation.

Speaking of positives, the possibilities are almost limitless for unexpected and interesting changes in the lives of our commuting workforce.

Do you have massive personal debt? It could be wiped away forever.
Hate your neighbors? Get new ones!
Unsuccessful in raising your own kids? Get a fresh start with a new batch.
Only time will tell what powerful and inspiring stories will result from this much needed program.

SWITCHEROO should be a boon for our economy as well, since untold millions of hours will be freed up each day to devote to work instead of driving. No doubt, each and every one of us will use this new found time wisely and in the best interest of our employer, helping spur on a vibrant and flourishing America.

I know what you’re thinking. “It will never work. It will be too messy. I won’t be able to understand the forms.” Not to worry, folks. We have thought of everything. The IRS will handle all the paperwork for you. There won’t be one single form for you to fill out, because you don’t even have to apply for the program. You’re already signed up! All you have to do is report to the address shown on the SWITCHEROO relocation notice that you will be receiving shortly, and you’re done. Your transition to your new life will be seamless, effortless, and a whole lot smoother every morning without all that driving!

Have fun with it, America, and enjoy your new life! I can’t wait to see where I’m going!

See you soon,
-Smidge


Copyright © 2011 Marc Schmatjen


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