What kind of tax refund are you getting this year? How are you going to spend it? Would you rather use your money throughout the year or get it all back in a large sum in the form of a refund?
I will probably pay in a couple three thousand bucks. I'll probably file for an extension, too, just because I can. I do this every year because I like to use my money throughout the year as I see fit. This also allows me to determine exactly when I will make my final donation to bogus welfare recipients. It will be later rather than sooner.
Between my federal and state tax returns, I'll be getting refunds of about $6,500. I've always liked getting a bit of a refund. If nothing else, it motivates me to file my taxes as early as possible. Without a refund, preparing and filing taxes feels more like an unpleasant chore.
As to what I'll do with my refund? I'll put it aside (savings). I have a daughter focused on getting married. Weddings aren't cheap these days.
Filing for an extension doesn't relieve one of paying taxes due by April 15th. Even if you file an extension, if you fail to pay what is owed, you are liable for interest (5%/year) and failure to pay penalties (1%/month) on top of what you owe. The rates can change quarterly.
Which bogus welfare recipients do you speak of? Your typical food stamp recipients (most are mothers with minor children) or farmers, many from Greene County, Iowa, that receive tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in crop subsidies?
I think the feds should offer tax breaks for buying U.S.A. made goods. Buy a Chevy, get a break. Buy a Ford, get a break. Buy non-Chinese and non-Taiwan and non-Pakistan, India, Senegal, or whatever and get a tax break. Don't even start with some kind of crap about overseas parts & etc. I'm not interested in responding to that. I know how it works. Buy Dodge, not Honda, get a break. Buy a Cadillac, not a Lexus, get a break. Once again, my 2 cents.
Joe Luehrmann likes American cars, has owned a string of them and is considering buying another. But he faces a problem in trying to figure out what's American anymore.
His brother just bought a Chevy Equinox, but some of its parts are from China. And he knows all about the Kentucky-built Camry, but buying a Toyota ships the profit to Japan.
Toyota brags in ads about its growing list of U.S. plants, yet it imported 37% more cars from Japan last year to meet increased demand. General Motors promotes its trucks in TV commercials to strains of This Is Our Country but makes some of its best-known SUVs in Mexico.
"What's American, vs. what's foreign? I can't really say," says the frustrated Luehrmann, a Chicago accountant. "It's not that easy. It's very shades of gray."
The ambiguity creates a quandary for the many who consider "Made in the USA" a badge of honor. To them, the label means putting fellow countrymen to work at decent wages and supporting the U.S. economy in wartime. Some domestic-brand dealers use patriotic appeals to try to rev up the Buy American spirit.
But many consumers are increasingly confused. The world is no longer as simple as us vs. them, Detroit against the Asians and Europeans.
It's a global industry now, in which all manufacturers are touching their automaking toes on the shores of just about every industrialized nation. Even GM, long the icon of American industry, hedges its bets. "We're very proud for the economic role we play in this country," says GM spokesman Greg Martin. "However, we're a global car company that happens to be based in the United States."
The contradictions of a borderless automotive economy are borne out by government figures that track where vehicles are made and their domestic parts content. The search for the American car leads to:
•Foreign cars made in the USA. Honda's Ohio-built Accord is 70% domestic parts. Toyota's Corolla is made in a California plant alongside General Motors models.
•American cars made abroad. Ford's hit Fusion sedan is made in Mexico; only half its parts are from the USA or Canada. GM pitches its small HHR sport utility and giant Suburban straight at the American market, but they, too, are built in Mexico. HHR has only 41% American and Canadian parts.
•Famous American names and foreign owners. More than three-quarters of the parts in Dodge's new Nitro SUV, which is assembled in Toledo, Ohio, are American or Canadian. But the profits go to Germany because Dodge is part of DaimlerChrysler. Chrysler Group, meanwhile, just became the first major automaker to announce it's going to make small cars for the U.S. market in China.
Despite the confusion, about half of Americans surveyed say they still try to buy products made in the USA, says Britt Beemer of America's Research Group.
The government makes it easy for buyers wandering sales lots to figure out which vehicles are most American. The location of the plant where a vehicle was assembled and its amount of U.S. or Canadian parts — they aren't separated out — are pasted on the window sticker.
Arguably, the most American of all vehicles right now is Ford's hulking 2007 Ford Expedition, a USA TODAY check of government listings, manufacturers and dealer sales lots reveals. The SUV is composed of 95% U.S. or Canadian parts, and it was made in Michigan. Ford's new Edge crossover and the Crown Victoria sedan also have 95% components, but both they and their corporate cousins are assembled in Canada.
Even though individual models vary widely, Detroit automakers overall still had more domestic parts in their vehicles when weighted according to sales, says an analysis from a pro-Detroit trade group.
Detroit's Big 3 derived about 77% of their parts from U.S. and Canadian factories from domestic sources. That compares with slightly less than half for Japanese brands overall, according to the Automotive Trade Policy Council, which represents the domestic manufacturers in trade issues. Among Japanese brands, Honda had the most domestic content at 59%.
"The data is clear: Domestic auto plants create more jobs in this country than overseas producers who locate here," says United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger in a statement to USA TODAY. But he was quick to note that foreign automakers have created more jobs in the USA by opening plants here, and he respects their workers.
Many auto dealers selling domestic brands are playing to the patriotism theme.
In Tampa, Bill Currie Ford credits pro-USA ad themes for contributing to fast growth. A billboard posted along Interstate 275 shows an American flag and outlines of Japan and South Korea. The message: "Whose country are you supporting?"
"We've had some compliments," says Currie's community relations director, Danny Lewis. And, he adds, "very little criticism."
In Roseville, Minn., Cadillac dealer Wally McCarthy runs radio ads on WCCO-AM in Minneapolis that say, "Buying a vehicle from GM, quite simply, helps support Americans."
Manufacturers — and not just those in Detroit — have picked up on the patriotism theme lately, especially when it comes to pickups.
To crack the full-size pickup market with its new Tundra, Toyota doesn't hold back in promoting how American it has become. The new Texas truck plant where the Tundra is built "is just one more example of our commitment to America," Toyota touts in colorful newspaper ads that mention lots of new jobs and a $15 billion U.S. investment.
GM counters with its Our Country campaign, filled with images of vintage Americana, for its Chevy Silverado pickups.
Consumers who care the most about patriotism when it comes to purchases are usually working-class white men; thus the emphasis on the pickup market, says Dana Frank, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Buy American: The Untold story of Economic Nationalism.
Pickup buyers also are notoriously loyal, another reason the campaigns are targeting them. They'll wear a Chevy belt buckle with pride, notes Honda Senior Vice President John Mendel, adding, "Not a lot of Lexus owners have an 'L' tattooed on their arm."
Half the domestic pickup buyers surveyed by J.D. Power and Associates cited not wanting to own a foreign-made truck as the chief reason for their purchase decision, even more than the one out of three who said they didn't like foreign-truck styling.
Pickup buyers "tend to be flag wavers, and they aren't convinced that Toyota is an American company," says Art Spinella of CNW Marketing Research. Consumers may be a little predisposed against Toyota, with 61% of those participating in CNW focus group panels in five cities saying they don't consider Toyota to be a U.S. company despite efforts to tint its image more red, white and blue.
"It does bother me that they have a series of ads showing they are part of the heartland of America, yet their imports increased," says building contractor Jim Urbano, 53, of Woodbridge, Conn., who also researches car-buying options on Edmunds.com. He says he prefers American-made vehicles, because, "It troubled me to see so many U.S. autoworkers being laid off."
Besides its flag-waving Tundra ads, Toyota has been running a public relations campaign in greater Washington, D.C., to cultivate an apple pie, not sushi, image among policymakers.
It helps that Toyota announced that a new assembly plant will be built in Tupelo, Miss., its fifth in the USA, with a goal of increasing production by 600,000 vehicles by 2010. Honda is also building a new assembly plant in Indiana.
"We are committed to building where we sell," says Toyota spokeswoman Martha Voss. "No one is adding more capacity than we are."
Voss cites demand for small cars last year as the reason Toyota's Japanese imports rose by so much. Altogether, Toyota imported close to half of all the vehicles it sold in the USA last year from Japan, including all its gas-electric hybrids and most of its luxury Lexus division vehicles.
Honda's imports soared 30% last year, Mazda's rose 19%, and Suzuki's were up 23%, the Congressional Research Service finds in a new report. It says Japanese makers are simply trying to meet customer demand while running their U.S. plants at full tilt.
Japanese automakers encountered "capacity restraints in their existing U.S. plants as a sharp increase in the price of gasoline sparked greater consumer demand for fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles," says William Duncan, general director of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association's office in Washington, D.C.
All told, each of the Detroit automakers supports 2½ times more U.S. jobs than Toyota, says Jim Doyle, president of the Level Field Institute, a Washington research group. He acknowledges, however, that "people are trying to define what an American car is, and they are having a tough time."
The confusion pains Luehrmann, 48. Hoping to reach a decision soon about his next car, he's looking at everything.
He's a believer in American cars, but, says with a tinge of regret, "I don't feel any great loyalty anymore."
What do you think makes a car an 'American car'? Do you care and does it affect what you buy?
After reading your post, I will continue to buy from the big three, as I have for the last 25 years. That's American made in my book. Enough said on that note as far as my opinion is concerned. What bugs the hell out of me is guys with "Proud to be Union", and "No Rats" bumperstickers hauling Asian made products out of big box stores hand over foot. Put your money where your mouth is. And I mean period.
Your idea of a tax break sounds good on the surface...but the main problem is that countries like China are funding our debt. So no way do we can do anything like that. China could not be laughing hard enough at the USA.
The American consumer should be more concerned with purchasing the product which most meets their needs, and less worried about its point of manufacture.
As a consumer, I want to have all available choices at my immediate dispoal, and if the Germans or Japanese are making what I want, that's what I will buy.
American manufacturers will follow suit when they find out where the market is being moved.
I don't see what difference it makes where a particular car is built. I don't think it is economically sound practice to support a product based solely on its point of manufacture, as opposed to the other variables that should be considered.
Patriotism is one thing, and believe me, I'm all for it, but when my family makes these decisions they are based on our safety and our budget.
Back to tax refunds - my guess is that most of you guys got back a large refund and are really proud of it. Perhaps you view it as some type of warped savings account.
If you expect a refund, I expect the IRS to continue to increase your taxes, as you will probably not even notice.
The successful American business man and investor Warren Buffett was quoted in the Associated Press (January 20, 2006) as saying "The U.S trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal budget deficit or consumer debt and could lead to political turmoil... Right now, the rest of the world owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them."
We should put big tariffs and taxes on all imports so the U.S. manufacturers would be forced to make everything here, including small parts & etc., that are usually imported. Tax the foreigners out of the U.S.!
Hey, I forgot! We should bust all the unions, too. They're a vestige of the past. They did their work back in the day, but now all they're doing is pricing American made goods out of the market. Why should anyone make $90,000 a year driving new cars from the assembly line out to the parking lot or screwing on radiator caps? No wonder we're up to our neck in trade deficit and foreign s%@#*!
I don't how much "pride" has to do with getting a refund. Not paying in a lump sum of money on or before April 15th every year is one less annoyance, one less bit of stress in "refund people's" lives. That can't be said for people that owe taxes. We happy "refund people" do have to listen to the rants and raves, the bitchings and moanings about the evil of government, IRS, etc. from you folks that have to pony-up money on April 15th.
How long has it been since the IRS/Congress/President increased anyone's taxes? You might have to go back to the early days of the Clinton years. The tax code is still indexed for inflation, a change made during the Reagan years. When tax rates do go up, the withholding amounts change on everyone's paychecks. We all notice that immediately.
Once again, anyone who gets a big tax refund is loaning their money to the Feds.They have used your money all year and refund it to you without bearing any interest. Tell me one more time how good that makes you feel.
Gosh, a high yield savings account would have made you how much in 2008...1%? Investing in the stock market would have lost you how much in 2008...40%? Go right ahead and under-withhold to the point of owing penalties, etc. When it's time for you to pony-up the cash to pay your tax liability, everyone around you will have to listen to you moan and groan about how terrible it is that you have to pay your share. If you want to waste your time calculating how you'll owe less than $1,000 at the end of the year, go knock yourself out. Take that financial windfall and have a five-star lunch at McDonald's. Just make sure your 85 year old grandmother pays for her own meal.
As you may know, states like California are seriously considering mailing out IOUs instead of checks this year. This goes to show that there are many VERY GOOD reasons to make an effort at getting your withholding right throughout the year.
It's true that you would have lost money last year in the market, but think about all those years you would have made a great deal of money.
I've always lived well below my means but most Americans do not. A few hundred dollars here or there means very little to me. However, and it's sad, most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, beyond their means. I happen to be a C.P.A. and prepare tax returns. When I see a new client, usually a younger person/couple, it's painful news for them to find out that they owe several hundred dollars that they don't have. I ask them about next year, if they want to pay in or to break even or to get a refund. Almost without exception, they prefer to get a little refund. I re-do their W-4s to adjust their withholdings. The following year is always a more pleasant experience when I get to tell them they'll get a refund. I'm always surprised how tense people are when it comes to tax time and how relieved they are when they find out they're to receive a refund.
Most of the people that post at this board (it's obvious some use multiple nicks) are probably near the age of 50. Older folks usually have more money, more equity in the homes, etc. For this crowd, a few hundred dollars is meaningless, not stressful at all.
I agree with the previous post. People where I work come to me asking for raises all year long. They are having trouble paying their monthly bills.
Thet are usually the same folks who get several thousand dollars back at the end of the year. By adjusting their withholding, they are able to give themselves a raise and still get a small refund.
Under no circumstances should they have to pay at the end of the year. I'm talking about people with perennial large refunds.
Rick brings up a great point now that CA is considering the IOU's. The state may not pay it's citizens their own money that was overpaid. That is theft is anyone's book.
If gov't can do that and not be accountable for theft, it is time to change my W-4 so that doesn't happen in my state or the federal government.
23 comments:
I try to have enough deducted during the year so that I don't pay more. No refund expected.
I will probably pay in a couple three thousand bucks. I'll probably file for an extension, too, just because I can. I do this every year because I like to use my money throughout the year as I see fit. This also allows me to determine exactly when I will make my final donation to bogus welfare recipients. It will be later rather than sooner.
Between my federal and state tax returns, I'll be getting refunds of about $6,500. I've always liked getting a bit of a refund. If nothing else, it motivates me to file my taxes as early as possible. Without a refund, preparing and filing taxes feels more like an unpleasant chore.
As to what I'll do with my refund? I'll put it aside (savings). I have a daughter focused on getting married. Weddings aren't cheap these days.
Filing for an extension doesn't relieve one of paying taxes due by April 15th. Even if you file an extension, if you fail to pay what is owed, you are liable for interest (5%/year) and failure to pay penalties (1%/month) on top of what you owe. The rates can change quarterly.
Which bogus welfare recipients do you speak of? Your typical food stamp recipients (most are mothers with minor children) or farmers, many from Greene County, Iowa, that receive tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in crop subsidies?
Don't tell me about filing extensions. I do it every year. Also, everyone knows who the bogus welfare recipients are. They do not involve food stamps.
I think the feds should offer tax breaks for buying U.S.A. made goods. Buy a Chevy, get a break. Buy a Ford, get a break. Buy non-Chinese and non-Taiwan and non-Pakistan, India, Senegal, or whatever and get a tax break. Don't even start with some kind of crap about overseas parts & etc. I'm not interested in responding to that. I know how it works. Buy Dodge, not Honda, get a break. Buy a Cadillac, not a Lexus, get a break. Once again, my 2 cents.
How do you tell which car is more American?
Joe Luehrmann likes American cars, has owned a string of them and is considering buying another.
But he faces a problem in trying to figure out what's American anymore.
His brother just bought a Chevy Equinox, but some of its parts are from China. And he knows all about the Kentucky-built Camry, but buying a Toyota ships the profit to Japan.
Toyota brags in ads about its growing list of U.S. plants, yet it imported 37% more cars from Japan last year to meet increased demand. General Motors promotes its trucks in TV commercials to strains of This Is Our Country but makes some of its best-known SUVs in Mexico.
"What's American, vs. what's foreign? I can't really say," says the frustrated Luehrmann, a Chicago accountant. "It's not that easy. It's very shades of gray."
The ambiguity creates a quandary for the many who consider "Made in the USA" a badge of honor. To them, the label means putting fellow countrymen to work at decent wages and supporting the U.S. economy in wartime. Some domestic-brand dealers use patriotic appeals to try to rev up the Buy American spirit.
But many consumers are increasingly confused. The world is no longer as simple as us vs. them, Detroit against the Asians and Europeans.
It's a global industry now, in which all manufacturers are touching their automaking toes on the shores of just about every industrialized nation. Even GM, long the icon of American industry, hedges its bets. "We're very proud for the economic role we play in this country," says GM spokesman Greg Martin. "However, we're a global car company that happens to be based in the United States."
The contradictions of a borderless automotive economy are borne out by government figures that track where vehicles are made and their domestic parts content. The search for the American car leads to:
•Foreign cars made in the USA. Honda's Ohio-built Accord is 70% domestic parts. Toyota's Corolla is made in a California plant alongside General Motors models.
•American cars made abroad. Ford's hit Fusion sedan is made in Mexico; only half its parts are from the USA or Canada. GM pitches its small HHR sport utility and giant Suburban straight at the American market, but they, too, are built in Mexico. HHR has only 41% American and Canadian parts.
•Famous American names and foreign owners. More than three-quarters of the parts in Dodge's new Nitro SUV, which is assembled in Toledo, Ohio, are American or Canadian. But the profits go to Germany because Dodge is part of DaimlerChrysler. Chrysler Group, meanwhile, just became the first major automaker to announce it's going to make small cars for the U.S. market in China.
Despite the confusion, about half of Americans surveyed say they still try to buy products made in the USA, says Britt Beemer of America's Research Group.
The government makes it easy for buyers wandering sales lots to figure out which vehicles are most American. The location of the plant where a vehicle was assembled and its amount of U.S. or Canadian parts — they aren't separated out — are pasted on the window sticker.
Arguably, the most American of all vehicles right now is Ford's hulking 2007 Ford Expedition, a USA TODAY check of government listings, manufacturers and dealer sales lots reveals. The SUV is composed of 95% U.S. or Canadian parts, and it was made in Michigan. Ford's new Edge crossover and the Crown Victoria sedan also have 95% components, but both they and their corporate cousins are assembled in Canada.
Even though individual models vary widely, Detroit automakers overall still had more domestic parts in their vehicles when weighted according to sales, says an analysis from a pro-Detroit trade group.
Detroit's Big 3 derived about 77% of their parts from U.S. and Canadian factories from domestic sources. That compares with slightly less than half for Japanese brands overall, according to the Automotive Trade Policy Council, which represents the domestic manufacturers in trade issues. Among Japanese brands, Honda had the most domestic content at 59%.
"The data is clear: Domestic auto plants create more jobs in this country than overseas producers who locate here," says United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger in a statement to USA TODAY. But he was quick to note that foreign automakers have created more jobs in the USA by opening plants here, and he respects their workers.
Many auto dealers selling domestic brands are playing to the patriotism theme.
In Tampa, Bill Currie Ford credits pro-USA ad themes for contributing to fast growth. A billboard posted along Interstate 275 shows an American flag and outlines of Japan and South Korea. The message: "Whose country are you supporting?"
"We've had some compliments," says Currie's community relations director, Danny Lewis. And, he adds, "very little criticism."
In Roseville, Minn., Cadillac dealer Wally McCarthy runs radio ads on WCCO-AM in Minneapolis that say, "Buying a vehicle from GM, quite simply, helps support Americans."
Manufacturers — and not just those in Detroit — have picked up on the patriotism theme lately, especially when it comes to pickups.
To crack the full-size pickup market with its new Tundra, Toyota doesn't hold back in promoting how American it has become. The new Texas truck plant where the Tundra is built "is just one more example of our commitment to America," Toyota touts in colorful newspaper ads that mention lots of new jobs and a $15 billion U.S. investment.
GM counters with its Our Country campaign, filled with images of vintage Americana, for its Chevy Silverado pickups.
Consumers who care the most about patriotism when it comes to purchases are usually working-class white men; thus the emphasis on the pickup market, says Dana Frank, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Buy American: The Untold story of Economic Nationalism.
Pickup buyers also are notoriously loyal, another reason the campaigns are targeting them. They'll wear a Chevy belt buckle with pride, notes Honda Senior Vice President John Mendel, adding, "Not a lot of Lexus owners have an 'L' tattooed on their arm."
Half the domestic pickup buyers surveyed by J.D. Power and Associates cited not wanting to own a foreign-made truck as the chief reason for their purchase decision, even more than the one out of three who said they didn't like foreign-truck styling.
Pickup buyers "tend to be flag wavers, and they aren't convinced that Toyota is an American company," says Art Spinella of CNW Marketing Research. Consumers may be a little predisposed against Toyota, with 61% of those participating in CNW focus group panels in five cities saying they don't consider Toyota to be a U.S. company despite efforts to tint its image more red, white and blue.
"It does bother me that they have a series of ads showing they are part of the heartland of America, yet their imports increased," says building contractor Jim Urbano, 53, of Woodbridge, Conn., who also researches car-buying options on Edmunds.com. He says he prefers American-made vehicles, because, "It troubled me to see so many U.S. autoworkers being laid off."
Besides its flag-waving Tundra ads, Toyota has been running a public relations campaign in greater Washington, D.C., to cultivate an apple pie, not sushi, image among policymakers.
It helps that Toyota announced that a new assembly plant will be built in Tupelo, Miss., its fifth in the USA, with a goal of increasing production by 600,000 vehicles by 2010. Honda is also building a new assembly plant in Indiana.
"We are committed to building where we sell," says Toyota spokeswoman Martha Voss. "No one is adding more capacity than we are."
Voss cites demand for small cars last year as the reason Toyota's Japanese imports rose by so much. Altogether, Toyota imported close to half of all the vehicles it sold in the USA last year from Japan, including all its gas-electric hybrids and most of its luxury Lexus division vehicles.
Honda's imports soared 30% last year, Mazda's rose 19%, and Suzuki's were up 23%, the Congressional Research Service finds in a new report. It says Japanese makers are simply trying to meet customer demand while running their U.S. plants at full tilt.
Japanese automakers encountered "capacity restraints in their existing U.S. plants as a sharp increase in the price of gasoline sparked greater consumer demand for fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles," says William Duncan, general director of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association's office in Washington, D.C.
All told, each of the Detroit automakers supports 2½ times more U.S. jobs than Toyota, says Jim Doyle, president of the Level Field Institute, a Washington research group. He acknowledges, however, that "people are trying to define what an American car is, and they are having a tough time."
The confusion pains Luehrmann, 48. Hoping to reach a decision soon about his next car, he's looking at everything.
He's a believer in American cars, but, says with a tinge of regret, "I don't feel any great loyalty anymore."
What do you think makes a car an 'American car'? Do you care and does it affect what you buy?
After reading your post, I will continue to buy from the big three, as I have for the last 25 years. That's American made in my book. Enough said on that note as far as my opinion is concerned. What bugs the hell out of me is guys with "Proud to be Union", and "No Rats" bumperstickers hauling Asian made products out of big box stores hand over foot. Put your money where your mouth is. And I mean period.
Sarge -
Your idea of a tax break sounds good on the surface...but the main problem is that countries like China are funding our debt. So no way do we can do anything like that.
China could not be laughing hard enough at the USA.
The American consumer should be more concerned with purchasing the product which most meets their needs, and less worried about its point of manufacture.
As a consumer, I want to have all available choices at my immediate dispoal, and if the Germans or Japanese are making what I want, that's what I will buy.
American manufacturers will follow suit when they find out where the market is being moved.
I don't see what difference it makes where a particular car is built. I don't think it is economically sound practice to support a product based solely on its point of manufacture, as opposed to the other variables that should be considered.
Patriotism is one thing, and believe me, I'm all for it, but when my family makes these decisions they are based on our safety and our budget.
Back to tax refunds - my guess is that most of you guys got back a large refund and are really proud of it. Perhaps you view it as some type of warped savings account.
If you expect a refund, I expect the IRS to continue to increase your taxes, as you will probably not even notice.
The successful American business man and investor Warren Buffett was quoted in the Associated Press (January 20, 2006) as saying "The U.S trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal budget deficit or consumer debt and could lead to political turmoil... Right now, the rest of the world owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them."
We should put big tariffs and taxes on all imports so the U.S. manufacturers would be forced to make everything here, including small parts & etc., that are usually imported. Tax the foreigners out of the U.S.!
Hey, I forgot! We should bust all the unions, too. They're a vestige of the past. They did their work back in the day, but now all they're doing is pricing American made goods out of the market. Why should anyone make $90,000 a year driving new cars from the assembly line out to the parking lot or screwing on radiator caps? No wonder we're up to our neck in trade deficit and foreign s%@#*!
I don't how much "pride" has to do with getting a refund. Not paying in a lump sum of money on or before April 15th every year is one less annoyance, one less bit of stress in "refund people's" lives. That can't be said for people that owe taxes. We happy "refund people" do have to listen to the rants and raves, the bitchings and moanings about the evil of government, IRS, etc. from you folks that have to pony-up money on April 15th.
How long has it been since the IRS/Congress/President increased anyone's taxes? You might have to go back to the early days of the Clinton years. The tax code is still indexed for inflation, a change made during the Reagan years. When tax rates do go up, the withholding amounts change on everyone's paychecks. We all notice that immediately.
Once again, anyone who gets a big tax refund is loaning their money to the Feds.They have used your money all year and refund it to you without bearing any interest. Tell me one more time how good that makes you feel.
Gosh, a high yield savings account would have made you how much in 2008...1%? Investing in the stock market would have lost you how much in 2008...40%? Go right ahead and under-withhold to the point of owing penalties, etc. When it's time for you to pony-up the cash to pay your tax liability, everyone around you will have to listen to you moan and groan about how terrible it is that you have to pay your share. If you want to waste your time calculating how you'll owe less than $1,000 at the end of the year, go knock yourself out. Take that financial windfall and have a five-star lunch at McDonald's. Just make sure your 85 year old grandmother pays for her own meal.
As you may know, states like California are seriously considering mailing out IOUs instead of checks this year. This goes to show that there are many VERY GOOD reasons to make an effort at getting your withholding right throughout the year.
It's true that you would have lost money last year in the market, but think about all those years you would have made a great deal of money.
Exactly how "stressful" can it be to pay a few hundred bucks in once a year? I'd hate to be around when "anonymous" makes a house payment.
I've always lived well below my means but most Americans do not. A few hundred dollars here or there means very little to me. However, and it's sad, most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, beyond their means. I happen to be a C.P.A. and prepare tax returns. When I see a new client, usually a younger person/couple, it's painful news for them to find out that they owe several hundred dollars that they don't have. I ask them about next year, if they want to pay in or to break even or to get a refund. Almost without exception, they prefer to get a little refund. I re-do their W-4s to adjust their withholdings. The following year is always a more pleasant experience when I get to tell them they'll get a refund. I'm always surprised how tense people are when it comes to tax time and how relieved they are when they find out they're to receive a refund.
Most of the people that post at this board (it's obvious some use multiple nicks) are probably near the age of 50. Older folks usually have more money, more equity in the homes, etc. For this crowd, a few hundred dollars is meaningless, not stressful at all.
I agree with the previous post. People where I work come to me asking for raises all year long. They are having trouble paying their monthly bills.
Thet are usually the same folks who get several thousand dollars back at the end of the year. By adjusting their withholding, they are able to give themselves a raise and still get a small refund.
Under no circumstances should they have to pay at the end of the year. I'm talking about people with perennial large refunds.
I got $8,300 back. I bought a used Mustang and paid cash. It's red and has a 5.0. You guys can talk about it all you want. You bite. Later.
Rick brings up a great point now that CA is considering the IOU's. The state may not pay it's citizens their own money that was overpaid. That is theft is anyone's book.
If gov't can do that and not be accountable for theft, it is time to change my W-4 so that doesn't happen in my state or the federal government.
Good point!
We made over $243,000 last year and paid less than $12,000 in taxes. Who in hell needs a refund?
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