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
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