Sunday, April 12, 2009

Taxes revolting? You can get an extension, you know...

No tax credit for my Prius?! That bites. On I slog through the numbers...

This quote from WRH is interesting to me. If we voted with our tax dollars, we would have a real democracy, not a representative democracy. The problem is, people are too uninformed to make good decisions (supposedly) and that is why we have a representative democracy. I'd like to see what happens in a real democracy for 10 years or so. How bad could it get?
Let us repeal all taxes across the board and offer a shopping list. The list has everything the government might want to do a place to check a box and the cost to the individual tax payer for that program. Items would include schools, hospitals, roads, space exploration, new jobs development, bombs, pay raises for Congress, money for Israel, bailouts for Wall Street, etc.

A taxpayer would simply check off those things he agrees we should all have and is taxed accordingly. I would agree to pay for schools, hospitals, good roads and job development.

The taxpayers would pay for those things we think we need, and NOT pay for nonsense and frills that have no place in our society.

Is that not Democracy in action?

Meanwhile, the revolt has not happened and we still have to file.
Internal Revenue Service United States Department of the TreasuryThis year, anyone, regardless of income, can e-file their extensions at no cost from a home computer using IRS traditional FreeFile or FreeFile Fillable Forms. E-filing a request for an extension using either form of FreeFile is convenient, safe and secure, and taxpayers receive confirmation to keep with their records.

Here are some statistics. Are you getting above or below the average refund?












































































































































2009 FILING SEASON STATISTICS



Cumulative through the weeks ending 3/28/08 and 3/27/09


Individual Income Tax Returns

2008



2009



% Change


Total Receipts

86,817,000



84,586,000



-2.6%


Total Processed

81,644,000



81,970,000



0.4%








E-filing Receipts:






TOTAL

62,237,000



65,932,000



5.9%


Tax Professionals

43,366,000



43,329,000



-0.1%


Self-prepared

18,870,000



22,603,000



19.8%








Web Usage:






Visits to IRS.gov

120,604,000



147,478,000



22.3%








Total Refunds:






Number

69,823,000



72,290,000



3.5%


Amount

$172.017


Billion

$196.563


Billion

14.3%


Average refund

$2,464



$2,719



10.4%








Direct Deposit Refunds:






Number

50,788,000



55,202,000



8.7%


Amount

$140.216


Billion

$164.657


Billion

17.4%


Average refund

$2,761



$2,983



8.0%



1 comment:

James said...

A true democracy sounds awesome. I am a bit of an anarchist (well perhaps a LOT of an anarchist) and would love to see some new systems being tried or tested even at the cost of craziness for a while.