Deep in the Heart of Taxes

Ken — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:40:00 +0000

During tax time last year, I was shocked into a temporary state of Republicanism when I found that my various sales of Apple stock caused me to owe several thousand dollars in capital gains taxes. After squeezing every drop of [legal] deductions out of my returns, I still got socked with a combined federal and state tax bill of about $5700.

This year was somewhat better. I'm actually getting some money back on my federal return. I still owe money on my state return. I blame this on the bizarre NC-4 tax withholding worksheet, which somehow told me I was eligible for eight exemptions on my state taxes. And I believed it. D'oh!

So between my federal and state taxes, and the stimulus-package tax rebate that'll be coming, my net is somewhere around... zero. Which is good, I guess.

There was a question on Yahoo Answers recently (more of a rant than a question, actually), that went something like this: if all the damn liberals are so much in favor of higher taxes, why not make an optional line item on the tax return, so liberals can voluntarily pay more?

I answered thusly: "Sure, sounds reasonable. Also, conservatives who want lower taxes should voluntarily avoid using taxpayer-funded services, like roads, public parks, and the military. If conservatives want to continue the war in Iraq, the should go fight there themselves.

"Or maybe, just maybe, we should all get together and try to do what's in our common best interests, rather than just trying to maximize our personal gains."

My response received a couple of thumbs-ups and a couple of thumbs-downs before the question was deleted by Yahoo altogether.

It does make me wonder, though: are Republicans, because of their anti-tax stance, more likely to cheat on taxes than Democrats? And if so, shouldn't they be audited more frequently?