Wordless Wednesday
Author Archives: Dick
Taxed. Again and Again and Again
We the Overtaxed People dread most April fifteenths but that terrible day has been delayed to April 18 or even April 19 this year.
Emancipation Day, a little-known holiday beyond the Beltway, is the primary reason the tax deadline changed this year. Slavery was formally abolished in the United States December 6, 1865, when the 13th Amendment was ratified, but it occurred much earlier in the District of Columbia: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act on April 16, 1862, freeing the thousands of slaves who lived in the district. Now a legal holiday in Washington, government offices and other public services do not operate on Emancipation Day, usually celebrated April 16. Emancipation Day falls back to April 15 or ahead to April 17 when it falls on a weekend because we couldn’t deprive civil servants in that city of a holiday.
In other tax news, Schedule HI-144, Vermont’s “Household Income Schedule” has a couple of unique features. By “unique” I mean “criminal.”
Here’s the first.
Definition:
Household Income means modified adjusted gross income, but not less than zero (0), received in a calendar year by:
all persons of a household while members of that household;
AND
the spouse of the claimant who is not a member of that household no matter where that spouse lives and who is not legally separated from the claimant, unless the spouse is at least 62 years of age and has moved to a nursing home or other care facility with no reasonable prospect of returning to the homestead.
So. Imagine that you live in North Puffin in the People’s Republic of Vermont but your spouse lives in Florida or South Dakota or Pago Pago, the territorial capital of American Samoa. You go to work, come home, feed your rabbit, put your feet up, watch TV. Tomorrow, lather, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile, your spouse works extraordinarily hard in that other place. He or she walks down to the beach, sniffs the fine odor of fish, and counts the boats in the harbor, until it is time to go home, feed his or her koi, put the old feet up, and watch TV. Tomorrow, lather, rinse, repeat.
That spouse never, ever comes to Vermont and has no Vermont income. Vermont grabs on to the Household Income of the spouse of the claimant who is not a member of that household no matter where that spouse lives.
It gets better.
Line e Interest and dividends
Enter the income required to be reported on Lines 8a and 9a of Federal returns 1040 or 1040A; or on Line 2 of Federal return 1040EZ plus the nontaxable interest not required to be reported on Federal return 1040EZ.
Line t
Add columns 1, 2, and 3 and enter sum. Entry cannot be less than zero (0).
Line u
For claimants under the age of 65 as of Dec. 31, 2015, enter the total of interest and dividends for all household members reported on Lines e and f in each column.
Line v
Add the three columns on Line u.
Line w
For purposes of calculating the property tax adjustment or renter rebate, household income is increased by the household total of interest and dividend income greater than $10,000.
Line x
Subtract Line w from Line v. If Line w is more than Line v, enter zero (0).
Line y Household Income.
Add Line t and Line x.
Didya notice?
Line e: enter the interest and dividend income required to be reported on your Federal return even if it’s nontaxable. Line u: enter the interest and dividends reported on Lines e and f. Now add it all up.
Didya notice? Vermont makes you add in your interest and dividend income twice.
What have we learned today?
If the People’s Republic of Vermont knows your name, they will tax you even if you live off planet. If you have a homestead in the People’s Republic of Vermont, they will tax twice for interest and dividends.
And there is no deduction under tax preparation expenses for Wet Lubes Wet Uranus Silicone.
Now does anyone wonder why I support (a) the flat income tax and (b) elimination of all other tax methods including corporate taxes? People have the right to be taxed fairly, the right to know how much is coming out of their pockets, and the right not to be taxed two or three times on the same income.
Mine
Wordless Wednesday
He Had a Wide Stance
Bruce Springsteen canceled his North Carolina show to protest the bathroom law.
Mr. Springsteen and the E Street Band were booked in the Greensboro Coliseum yesterday. 15,000 ticket holders will all be eligible for a refund.
Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) signed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, HB2, last month after the North Carolina General Assembly called a special session to push the law through after the Charlotte City Council passed a non-discrimination ordinance.
“[The abominable Charlotte act] allows grown men to share bathrooms and locker facilities with girls and women,” one North Carolina Repuglican said.
Be very afraid!
The newly enacted law requires individuals to use bathrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate.
“To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress,” Mr. Springsteen said in a statement.
Update:
PayPal pulled 400 jobs from North Carolina. Braeburn Pharma is pulling out. The NBA All Star game probably won’t happen in NC. Some 100 national companies have decried the law.
“F**k Springsteen,” my friend Dino Russell said. “Wanna see what sex you identify with? Look in your underwear.”
Dino is a world traveler so I’m pretty sure he has peed and pooped in Europe. I didn’t know he much cared then if the next guy was male, female, both, or anything in between.
“I don’t give a crap for me,” he said. “My daughters and granddaughters presumably do and I do give a crap if the next guy over is, well, a guy with his cellphone on the floor looking up her snatch. Or whatever. Bad enough they have to deal with the weirdos of their own sex.”
Pfui. It’s Victorian. We need to get over the legal idea that there’s something secret or dirty about our bodies.
“You are being stupid,” he said. “This is an issue of increased potential for rape. Pull your head out of your ass.”
In case you missed it, please notice a number of bathroom references here.
I’m being stupid about yet another salvo in Conservative attempts to wrest local control away from the local voters.
Liz Arden gives us a few points that Dino and the other ostriches would do well to understand.
a) Just because someone thinks they’re female or homosexual or asexual or nonsexual does not mean they are pervs who will violate your person or your privacy.
b) There are pervs who will violate your daughters’ and granddaughters’ privacy and threaten their sense of safety and well-being. Period. They could be sitting next to you in church.
c) North Carolina and the other states don’t care a whit about pervs with cellphones in bathrooms. They care about competition in the bathrooms. Oh, yeah. And they care about catering to the emotional idiocy of people and the Sharia belief that they can impose their religious interpretation on everyone within 10 feet of them. Or within 3,000 miles.
How many rapes happen in the famed Parisian unisex public toilets?
How many by transgender folk or even cross dressers?
Weirdos are weirdos. A person who genuinely feels they are female despite having XY chromosomes and penises, well, that weirdness does not in the slightest threaten Dino, his wife, his daughters, his granddaughters, nor any other human being on the planet.
Unless they are carrying an axe like, say, Carrie Nation. Or the lawmakers who passed HB2 or HB 1523. Then be very afraid.
Dino’s daughters and granddaughters would do well to understand that. Dino would do well to understand that. There are already laws banning pervs from being in the bathroom looking up the little girls’ snatches. Or raping them.
Update:
Bryan Adams has canceled his show at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum this Thursday, because that state’s new “Religious Liberty” Act, HB 1523, discriminates against gay couples or members of the LGBT community.
We gotta get over the legal idea that there’s something secret or dirty about our bodies.
It’s tough, though.
He merely had a “wide stance.”
A (now-former) Republican senator pled guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge after his arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Former Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) had been caught flat-footed by a police detective investigating lewd behavior in an airport men’s room. His 28 ultra conservative years in Congress, years spent fighting gay rights at every turn, put him in second place in Idaho history, behind only Sen. William Borah (R-ID).
Former Sen. Craig barred extension of rights to same-sex couples. He voted “yes” on an Idaho constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. He voted against extending the federal definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation. And so on.
Who’s making odds on how Former Sen. Craig would have voted on HB2 or HB 1523?
For the record, I’m OK with Balian Buschbaum (formerly Yvonne Buschbaum) or Erik Schinegger (formerly Erika Schinegger), Jaiyah Saelua (formerly Johnny Saelua), Mianne Bagger (formerly Michael Bagger), or Caster Semenya (formerly Caster Semenya) sharing the restroom with me or with my great-granddaughters. Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce), though, I’m not so sure of.
“Buncha pansies who think it strikes too close to home,” Miz Arden said.
And there you have it.