>Visit a park for free
> Realize that you’re theoretically owing everyone in town roughly $0.01 for your “free” stay
Not really, that’s what I’m paying taxes for
Listen here, buddy, we can either suspend our beliefs the easy way or the hard way for the sake of this joke!
that and unlimited military action around the world
The second one not really, the German army is staying mostly at home these days
#JustLibertarianThings
Yeah you could have made $1.35 in interest!
As an accountant I’ve listened to several colleagues talk for hours about dialing in their W-2’s, some even under withholding and making quarterly payments to make up the difference. Calculating exactly what they are saving and investing that into a seperate account.
Probably spending more in fees than they’re saving. Let alone the time invested. I’m perfectly fine with the government slowly accumulating 1% of my income extra over the course of a year and sending it back later personally.
$1,000 is a nice little windfall to get back in February or March.
$1,000 is a lot of money to suddenly have to come up with before April 15.
It doesn’t have to be that hard for normal paycheck people. Just set the deductions so you owe money trial by error style. As long as you get enough of a raise each year you won’t owe a penalty.
This is kinda what I do, I work out of state so I have been tweaking to get my state refund for one match the balance for the other because I’m too broke otherwise.
Fellow accountant here.
I’m getting $500 back this year. Sometimes I owe that much and offset with additional HSA contributions.
I don’t sweat it much beyond that. Just make sure I’m safe harbored and reconcile in February.
Unless we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars variance, the “free government loan” is entirely immaterial for most people, especially when savings accounts were paying a fraction of one percent interest and investments would either ring up ridiculous fees or require lot purchases far beyond the excess withholding.
I’m drinking beer this afternoon and don’t know if there’s a point to what I just said.
I’m drinking beer this afternoon and don’t know if there’s a point to what I just said.
Yes. There is a point to saying you’re drinking beer this afternoon. The point is that you’re having a nice afternoon!
My employer sells “stocks” to employees that don’t show anywhere and you can only sell them back to the company after two year. Exchange also isn’t immediate. Company chooses the date.
They really want people to buy those things and are heavily campaigning for it.
They also give a small amount of these stocks as bonuses to people that have performed well.
When I say to people that buying those “stocks” just gives the company free loan, they look at me weird.
Yes, stock is basically a loan to the company. Sure, if a company always new it was going to grow at a certain rate and life were guaranteed they could give everyone an exact raise…
Instead they say “here is a bonus, its built on a gamble. Here’s is monopoly money that might be worth 10% more in two years, or maybe the company will be bankrupt and you will be unemployed.”
Would it be better to get a cash bonus or a raise of similar value? Sure.
doesn’t show up somewhere
Oh look, it’s a scheme.
You’re 99.5% sure getting screwed over
Do these socks appreciate or pay a dividend?
While this might be correct, I disagree with this as a philosophy.
A) most people in this country don’t have cash reserves to pay an underpaid tax bill.
B) most people don’t have the investment acumen to properly invest monies not withheld on taxes to benefit from not paying as much on their income.
C) They just spend the money because most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and because A and B.
So for most people I would say that judicious overpayment of tax on the W4 resulting in a minor or modest tax refund is probably better all-around. That money will go right back into the economy or pay off some debt.
It kind of feels like a year-long savings account. Once a year, we have enough money to do something like pay for new gutters.
Yep. We tend to view it the same way. The return is pretty small most of the time, but it’s something.
It’s was a funny way for me to think about it. I don’t really mind the easy taxes are now
That’s cool. However I think some people take this philosophy seriously and set themselves up for a problem. Figured my 2¢ wouldn’t hurt.
It also shields you from human error, the IRS already knows what your taxable income is (assuming your employer correctly withholds it for you). Its much less stress to file with an error in your favor than in theirs. If you own them they will hunt you to the ends of the earth and make you resolve it, but if they owe you they just send you a check and call it a day.
Same with everything we invest; RRSP, TFSA, even our own money from our accounts is used by them
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Reminds me of one of the ‘warnings’ they gave us in basic training - tldr is that the folks in finance are just as dumb as the rest of us, and invariably there are a couple recruits in every batch that have their first paycheck MAJORLY fucked up.
Like, instead of the $400 we’re supposed to get, we’d get like $40,000 cuz of some fat-finger fuckup in Excel.
The warning was “DO NOT TOUCH a single cent of money you’re not supposed to have, cuz they WILL notice and you WILL have to pay it back!”
…which in my mind translated to: “If you win the finance fuckery lottery, all your loans just became 0% interest!!”
I was not one of the lucky ones. Q_Q
Don’t know how that works with the feds, but I worked IT for a private payroll firm. If we fucked up and put extra money in your account, that was your money. We had no means of taking it back. None.
Imagine the possible scams if it wasn’t that way!
Caveat: If the bank fucks up and deposits too much, while that’s on them, you don’t get to keep the funds.
I’ll note: American employees, while not having the protections we should have, probably get more than you think. If you start work for us and I send you a $3,500 MacBook, and you quit next week? LOL, keep it. HR can’t hold your last check or any other such thing.
Was the benefactor of finance mistake in military. It’s not your money, it’s the government’s. They take it back. You have no defense and no rights.
Bonus is if they screw up and give you $25k extra like they did me, you can pay it back as 10% of your base income, interest free. Turned out to be a 0% interest 3 year car loan for me!
So I’d make a few bucks in interest off it. I’d rather give it to them for a nice little payday around March and to not have the stress of trying to hit close to zero without owing.
Yep! You’re making pennies on bank interest. Dial in your W4 tight if you wish, but the feds aren’t getting much over on ya.
With my current bank, my return would have gotten me nearly $100 in interest over the last year.
Yup. Folks seems to be oblivious to the fact that increased interest rates mean savings accounts are pretty decent these days if you shop around. I’m getting 4.5% in a high interest savings account which would’ve unthinkable a few years ago.
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You could have just estimated your income taxes ahead of time and saved enough to pay it before the due date, but why risk jailtime when there is automatic tax withholding available to you?
It’s worse when you’re operating a business and you have to pay quarterly estimated taxes.
Eh, you generally don’t get jail time for late payment. Tax agencies are more interested in getting the money than putting people in jail and people don’t make money to pay off what they owe when they’re in jail.
You get charged interest for late payment, but it’s at a very reasonable rate. The government can borrow money at better interest rate than is available to most people after all.
The big no-no is lying on your tax forms. That’s something they might put you in jail for. But even then they’re likely to prefer fines over jail time. Because they want that money.
People that go to jail are either Al Capone who the government just wants to get for anything, or people that continuously try to defraud the government on their tax forms. Sometimes it’s people who straight up refuse to pay their taxes, but even then they’ll try to garnish their wages to get the money. But if that mechanism isn’t available, then that can result in jail time.
Surely the list of countries/governments that don’t ever even bother to give their citizens a tax return is much longer than the ones that do.
In my country you just don’t overpay taxes.
here in Mexico there’s an app and website from Hacienda (Treasury) they calculate your tax return automatically. I tried it 2 years ago and they’re still working on “returning” my taxes
What percentage of those are ones with competent tax-funded programs that actually provide value to their citizens? Cause in the US I don’t see shit
This assumes tax return is because of over-withholding. If you’re like me with a young family and low-ish income you pay $0 in federal taxes and get a bunch back for EIC, child tax credits, etc. I’m just excited because I’ll be able to fully pay off some of the debts that have been hanging over me and largely not shrinking at all next month
I’m gonna be straight. In reality I’m absolutely fine with taxes. It’s just funny to think about it as in the meme.
If the government is going to use that interest free loan to give people healthcare, then I’m fine with it.
Doesn’t matter. You’d have spent it on bullshit, anyways, but now you have a nice chunk to blow all at once!
This. Every year I tax some percent above what’s necessary, and clap with glee when I get some extra income.
Not much different than having it in a chequing account except that I’m less likely to spend it on something stupid.
1 year GIC rates are pretty good (4-5%) but considering that 50% of people under 55 can’t afford a $1000 surprise expense it’s not really a question of getting a handful of dollars from interest that the government could have given you to invest.
See facts like this make me wonder if a Norway style sovereign wealth fund could be developed to close the gaps in people’s quality of life and what they’ve put into working.
It’s not like the US is short on natural resource wealth to invest as the principle, and put together with a restructured tax regime it could significantly reduce the net burden for most americans, and especially the most misfortuned americans.
The US is a net importer, though. It wouldn’t make sense.
I think that has more to do with the economics than the availablity in most cases
Being a net importer, means the US consumes more than it produces. It vaguely makes sense because it is still a growing county.
Norway’s oil fund protects the domestic economy from the negative consequences of being an oil exporting nation. Less kindly, you could call it currency manipulation. The US would be ill-advised to do like-wise, given its import surplus.
Me:
- Gets a bill for my tax return.
- Pays said bill.
- 3 months later; government refunds me the interest from that bill.
Am I winning?
