Category Archives: #DearCongress

Because We the Overtaxed People have had it.

Strike!

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“We need to go on strike!” My friend Lido Bruhl shouted.

From the You Can’t Make this Stuff up department.

“They can’t rise if the minimum wage is too low to live on,” democratic candidate Hillary Clinton said in a speech Friday.

The minimum wage is the least an employer can pay an hourly employee; it has been pegged at $7.25 an hour since 2009; some states and cities have raised their minimum wage higher than that.

Many politicians want to raise it to $15/hour.

Just 4.3% of hourly workers 16 years old and older earn at or below the prevailing minimum wage but 42% of all U.S. workers earn $15 or less. Since about 60% of the U.S. workforce of some 122.9 million full time workers overall are paid hourly, more than 70 million workers now make less than that magic $15/hour. (BLS defines full-time workers as those who usually work 35 hours or more per week.)

“We need to go on strike!” Lido “Lee” Bruhl is a now retired newspaper editor who lives on Social Security with help from his wife and his daughter Greta.

Wait.

What?

What’s a state-run lottery?
It’s another extra tax on people who can’t do math.

Let’s start with some basic facts about Social Security today.

“If it weren’t for Social Security more than one-third of us older Americans would be living in poverty,” he said. “As it is, we worked all our lives and now we’re living on minimum wage!”

Wait.

What?

Regular readers may recall a chart I created last year to compare the minimum wage with the Federal Poverty Line. People working for minimum wage have consistently earned more than the Federal poverty level every year since 1957. Here are those figures updated.


2016 Minimum Wage Chart

Among “elderly” Social Security recipients, 22% of married couples and about 47% of unmarried persons rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income. Ouch!

There are 41,362,000 elderly recipients. About half of them receive the average “benefit” of around $1,300 per month or less. That’s about $43 more per month than minimum wage. And it is considerably less than that after deducting for Medicare premiums.

The definition of poverty is income below $11,770 this year. Working 40 hours at minimum wage earns you $15,080. (Heck, if you work 35 hours at minimum wage, you earn $13,195.) And the average Social Security check will bring in $15,988 this year.

We don’t need to argue about whether “poverty” in the United States doesn’t look at all like the hand-to-mouth existence of the poor in, say, Mexico. If you can afford cigarettes and a smart phone, you aren’t poor.

“I don’t smoke. I can’t afford it,” Lee said. “I don’t have a smart phone for the same reason.”

Now for the politics (and you thought I’d never get here).

The American retirement system is designed so smart politicians can keep American workers and retirees alike in servitude to the government but the idea of raising the minimum wage is designed for people who can’t do math.

Want to know why politicians want the minimum wage to rise?
The income tax you pay goes up when your paycheck goes up.

Want to know why politicians want wages to rise?

It’s simple. The income tax you pay goes up when your paycheck goes up. The income tax rate you pay goes from zero at minimum wage to about 13%, meaning you’ll owe $4,060 when your paycheck goes up to $15/hour. All those new taxpayers.

What happens when 70 million people get a raise to $15/hour?

The first thing that happens is a brief surge in government revenues as payroll taxes skyrocket.

The second thing that happens is 25 million people get their hours cut. The politicians forgot that part.

The third thing that happens is 25 million new unemployment applications. The politicians forgot that part.

The fourth thing that happens is 10 million pissed off workers because they no longer make more than minimum wage. The politicians forgot that part.

The fifth thing that happens is an inflationary spiral. The politicians forgot that part.

The sixth thing that happens is an increase in the Federal Poverty Level. The politicians probably remembered that part.

And almost 21 million Social Security recipients won’t be able to afford the stamp to write to their Congress Critter because they will suddenly be back under the poverty line.

My friend Lee Bruhl was right.

We need to strike.

He’s just wrong about the reason.

 

So, Rufus, Have You Started Yet?

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April 15. Wednesday. Midnight. 60.0 hours from right now.

7% of people receiving a tax refund will “fritter the money away” on a shopping spree or vacation according to a new Bankrate.com poll.

“Cuz pleasure is bad. It’s so … frittery,” Liz Arden said.

Exactly. Our Victorian more, except most (well-to-do) Victorians seemed to want more.

A new-to-me camera is not frittering.

Rufus just bought a Fishman Aura Spectrum DI which has cool samples of jumbos, dreadnaughts, OMs, 12 string guitars and more to blend with the output of his guitar.

“I’m very excited to get this (used, of course, about 1/2 the price of new),” he said. “It’s an everyday necessity.”

I agree, but neither of us exactly needs more stuff.

The real news is that only 7% of “recession weary Americans” are frittering. A whopping 84% of Americans receiving refunds intend to pay down debt, save or invest their “windfall,” or use it for everyday necessities, according to that poll.

“Taxes ought not be so difficult or expensive to figure out and pay.”

SWMBO and I don’t make a lot of money. In fact, now that we are on what is laughably called a “fixed income,” we really don’t make a lot of money. Still, we live in different states from each other and have a couple of separate very small businesses so Uncle Sam and the great state of Vermont have trained me to dread April.

I do my own taxes.

I used to be able to do it with a calculator and some scratch paper.

After a while, it just got easier to do them with a spreadsheet on the computer.

After a while, all the rules changes made it too tough to do with a spreadsheet on the computer so we switched to Tax software. I’ve experimented with most of the major programs and settled on TubboTax™ as the least bad of the bunch.

Here’s this year’s tale of woe:

February 20:
I loaded and started work in Tubbo. Irritating program; I tried opening the files from prior years with it so I could fart around with some Vermont demands but no joy.

Then I started in on this year’s. No joy there, either. For example, I bought a new, under-$200 printer that has to be depreciated. Tubbo wouldn’t let me close the asset entry worksheet because I apparently made a mistake in my SDA elections. I don’t even know what a “Special Depreciation Allowance” is, let alone why I have to elect it on a sub-$200 piece of office equipment. All I know is that I checked exactly the same boxes on the printer this one replaced.

The help was of little, well, help.

Time passed. I entered stuff.

I’m a Florida resident. I have no remaining connection to Vermont except a spouse who is a Vermont resident. I live here. She lives there. We file “Married-Separate” because we have separate households.

Vermont sent her a letter demanding my returns for the last three years. I’m a Florida resident. I have no Vermont income. None. Vermont says we need to file “Married-Joint” because we’re not, well, separated.

March 7:
“I haven’t started my taxes yet,” Rufus said.

Form 1040I started the joint return with Anne as the primary filer, then did a dope slap because I live in Florida.

Converted the self/spouse thing. I think. Tubbo has no way to switch the primary filer on a joint return. I don’t know why Tubbo has no way to switch filers. It’s a database. It’s a check mark. It should be trivial. Tubbo has no way to switch filers.

I thought I had gotten Tubbo to recognize everything. That turned out to be not quite correct.

My friend Fanny Guay bought an ObamaCare policy. She filled out the HealthCare.gov questionnaire which asked for last year’s income and got a $529 monthly “discount” that brought her premium down to $34/month. Cool, huh?

She had no idea that the “discount” was in reality a Monthly Advance Payment of the Premium Tax Credit.

She filled out her 1040 online and was blown away when the IRS wanted $3,800 of that Advance Payment of the Premium Tax Credit back. See, last year Ms. Guay and her older hubby hadn’t taken a large IRA distribution. This year, they did. Her income changed and that changed the premium.

Ms. Guay got screwed.

March 23:
“I haven’t started mine yet,” Rufus said.

SWMBO’s Vermont return uses a “recomputed” 1040. Tubbo shows me as not over 65 as of 12/31/14 (I was). It included a Federal Schedule K-1 (neither of us got one). It gave us a $2,485 self-employed health insurance deduction (that doesn’t appear on any other Form 1040). And it created a Vermont Credit for tax paid to another state. Alabama. (We really really don’t even drive through Alabama.)

April 4:
“I haven’t started mine yet,” Rufus said.

I spent the day on picayunia. I still don’t know how to fix Tubbo’s belief that I’m not 65. I overrode their selection. And, since I paid a few bucks as a 15% foreign tax to Canada, I reckon I should file Form 1165 to maybe get a credit for it. Nupe. Not according to Tubbo.

I sent SWMBO a review copy of her Vermont return using a 70 cent Great Spangled Fritillary.

April 5:
“I should start my taxes,” Rufus said.

I spent even more time convincing Tubbo to use the same numbers in the recomputed copy as the Joint copy of same exact tax file.

April 11:
“I, um, haven’t started mine yet,” Rufus said.

E-filing was as screwed up as the rest of Tubbo. I started with [Click here to e-file] that evening and didn’t finish until 12:10 a.m.

At the end of the process, Intuit asked if I’d like to rate my experience.

[OH BOY!OH BOY!OH BOY!]

The link took me to intuit.com and the page never loaded. It said LOADING… but that was it. No progress meter. Nothing on the progress bar. No new page showing. Nothing. LOADING…

In between, they decided to send my refund to some broker instead of the bank, thought SWMBO’s PIN was mine and vice versa, and reversed our addresses. Maybe. Or they think “Swmbo K Harper” is “Dick” and “Richard B Harper” is “Swmbo.”

And, natch, IRS rejected the return.

F1040-526-02 – If you’re Married Filing Jointly and you’ve entered an e-filing PIN, you must enter your spouse’s date of birth or, if deceased, your spouse’s date of death.
F1040-525-02 – The Primary Taxpayer Date of Birth or Date of Death is missing. Please review your return and make the necessary corrections.

Both our dates of birth are plainly in the return, right there on the Info Worksheet.

I finally figured out that Tubbo does not store the nicknames in any accessible form. They go in about six steps down during the step-by-step “interview.” I had to run the interview again to change that. It seems to have fixed the birth date glitch.

One might expect something as important as a birth date to be tied to the same field as the Social Security number.

The Tubbo help system had no knowledge of how to change a nickname. The Tubbo help system had no knowledge of how to swap primary filer. The Tubbo help system had no help.

!@#$%^Tubbo. The !@#$%^Comcast of tax returns.

It would have been easier to print and mail. A lot easier. SWMBO mailed hers today.

!@#$%^Tubbo.

Anyway, I found the nickname source on my own, corrected that and a couple of otter glitches, and refiled. Success to the extent that the IRS accepted the return. I wish I had some idea of what is in the data stream.

What’s the bottom line?

“I, um, haven’t started mine yet,” Rufus said.

A flat tax would solve this. We’d never need !@#$%^Tubbo again.

In 1980, I spent about 16 hours putting together a 9-page tax return. In 2015, I spent about 80 hours putting together an 18-page tax return. And I have no idea of what is in the data stream @#$%^Tubbo sent to the IRS.

60 hours to go. Have you started yet?

April 24 is Tax Freedom Day this year, a day later than 2014 and four days later than 2013.
Yeppers, the economy is booming.

 

Pop Goes the Weasel

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First week of the first month of Spring and it’s time for Random Fancies! Today, I’ll link barber shops and movie tickets and inflation, something I am doubly unqualified to do1.

My first real job (it had a paycheck and withheld taxes and everything!) was as an usher in the Warner Theater six miles from home and I whiled away some of my college hours managing the Lee Theater about six miles from school. I have good memories.

I got a raise to a buck an hour when the Warner’s maintenance man retired and the ticket price rose to a buck about the same time. (Minimum wage had jumped to $1.25/hour by then.)

Having Love Story at the Lee for 14 weeks, then getting transferred to the Criterion for the New Year’s Eve premiere of Nicholas and Alexandra was enough for my movie career. I have been to the movies since then but I don’t go very often. I was blown away when I saw that tickets to Les Mis cost $12.50 each.

People may complain more about the cost of popcorn (movie popcorn prices have popped disproportionately to average theater ticket prices over the last almost-100 years) but ticket prices make the better indicator.

My first haircut was, well let’s just say I had pretty, long hair at the time. And not a lot of language skills. And I got a lollipop. My folks believed in the “butch” cut, so the barber never had much trouble performing, other than to get me to sit still.

I rebelled the summer before I went away to school. OK, I told my mom I was too busy to get it cut. At any rate, it had grown out to almost an inch long by the time I got to Hoboken. And it kept doing so.

I haven’t been to a real barbershop since about 1967. One of my roommates taught me how to trim and more-or-less shape it in the mirror. Later, I taught SWMBO how to trim and shape it quite well. Even she stopped cutting it in 2004 when I ripped the kitchen floor up in Renovation, v. 2, the Sequel. I’ve kept it pretty short using the mirror again since I shaved my head for Cap Cancer in 2009. I was blown away when Rufus told me a $15.00 haircut was a bargain.

Those prices have climbed faster than the CPI which Federal Government uses to figure inflation. Or the PCE which the Federal Government uses to report inflation when they don’t like the CPI. Or the Chained CPI which the Federal Government uses to obfuscate inflation when they don’t like the CPI or the PCE.

There’s no hyperinflation if you believe the official statistics.

We need a better indicator.

Youtube is crowded with Quick Belly Inflation guides, most of which use air compressors.

We really need a better indicator.

The fact that hamburger “sale” prices have quadrupled while Uncle Sam tells us inflation is flat shows that Harper’s new Inimitable Impressive Inflationary Indicator is practically perfect.

Haircuts and movie ticket costs tell us
more about the economy than the BLS’
poke-in-the-eye-with-a-sharp-stick.

Here it is. The Harper Inimitable Impressive Inflationary Indicator, occasionally known as the Dick Stick:

INFLATION IS HIGHER THAN REPORTED WHEN:
HAIRCUT + MOVIE                                             
—————————     >     A GALLON OF GAS
2                                          

1 Unlike, of course, the majority of economists today.
In 1965 a six-pack of your average American beer cost just 99 cents, too.

 

Gruber Was … Right?

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“If you’re allergic to Farxiga…”

The most annoying ads on television, now that the political circus has moved back inside the beltway, include a phrase straight from Jonathan Gruber’s playbook.

That annoys me. I’m smarter than most fourth graders. I’m pretty sure you are, too.

• “Do not take if allergic to Farxiga,” the upbeat announcer tells us 38 seconds into the ad.

Maybe Mr. Gruber was right.

Maybe Americans have proven their stupidity.

The FDA has regulated prescription drug advertising since the 1962 Kefauver amendments of the Food and Drug Act of 1938. AstraZenica wouldn’t put almost a minute of caveats into this ad without regulations.

Or maybe We the Overtaxed People aren’t smart enough to know not to take a drug we’re allergic to. More likely the lawyers included the Do not take if allergic line to keep us from noticing the This stuff can kill you line.

There’s plenty of stupid to go around.

• The Unaffordable Care Act requires each and every one of us to have health insurance. It’s a tax. It’s the law. Which makes me wonder about the radio ad running here in South Puffin: “Thank goodness for Urgent Care! I don’t have insurance…”

Hello? ObamaDon’tCare? I’m thinking a provider maybe shouldn’t advertise that people are still not covered.

Or maybe We the Overtaxed People aren’t smart enough to notice.

• And we’re now in the “open enrollment” period for health insurance. Americans with employer-supplied health insurance can freely join or change plans. Americans with ObamaDon’tCare can freely join or change plans. Americans with Medicare can freely join or change plans.

Whichever category is yours, your premiums are going up.

Premiums for coverage under the Unaffordable Care Act will increase dramatically in the Florida Keys for 2015. A 52 year-old Marathon man in with a Florida Blue “gold” plan paid $645 per month for his insurance last year. Florida Blue will raise his 2015 premium to $879 per month. That’s 36% even with common core arithmetic.

It’s bad on Medicare, too. A 71 year-old woman in Vermont with a United Health Care Medicare Advantage plan paid $0 per month last year. UHC will raise her 2015 premium to $43 per month. That’s a gazillion%. A 66 year-old man in Vermont with a Blue Cross Medigap “Plan F” paid $140.70 per month last year. Blue Cross will raise his 2015 premium to $155 per month. That’s “only” 10%.

By jeezum, the Federal Bureau of Living Management says the cost-of-living has risen just 1.7%. Have any of the MSM nightly news broadcasts reported how wrong that one is?

Dammit. Jonathan Gruber was right.

ObamaDon’tCare had the chance to fix all this. We had hope. He promised change. He really could have changed the health care system. Instead, We the Overtaxed People got the Unaffordable Care Act. Some Americans voted for this. Some Americans approved this. And now all Americans are paying for it.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
 

Distracted

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A friend posted this: “I guarantee you’ll hear the phrase ‘My ancestors came here legally’ in the aftermath of President Obama’s immigration address. It’s almost impossible to find any conversation about immigration — between elected officials, pundits, online commenters – in which at least one participant doesn’t use the phrase.”

While the Obamanation and his Kool Aid quaffing crowd distract us with illegal executive orders and net neutrality, we still have crumbling roads and bridges, failing schools, and the slowest and most expensive Interwebs in the world.

Oh, yeah. And a still-broken healthcare system (dammit, I thought the Unaffordable Care Act was supposed to change things).

This newspeak argument over the illegal aliens the left wants to recast as “undocumented immigrants” is a decent stand-in for the criminal behavior across government.

If you are Abenaki, Eastern Pequot, or Mi’kmaq, your ancestors illegally displaced the Red Paint people. If your ancestor came over in 1642 at the invitation of Billy Penn with my greatx6 grandfather, you maybe displaced the Lenni-Lenapi. Mr. Penn had a legal charter and my greatx6 grandfather was a British subject because there was no United States. His grandson became an American citizen. His greatx2 grandson was born one. If your ancestor came in with my other great-grandfather, they used the then-normal immigration process and became citizens. They followed the law on the ground at the time.

No matter how they got here, the problem isn’t our ancestors (unless they were criminals). The problem is anyone who is here illegally now because they are criminals. The problem is this attempt on the part of so many to pretend that that ain’t so.

crim·i·nal /’krimənl/ noun
1. a person who has committed a crime.

The Obamanation has accumulated an extraordinarily long list of major crimes in just six years. The following is just the short list. If a business or a crime family got caught at all of this, we’d see million spent on RICO prosecutions.

• Mr. Obama stole General Motors from its owners and gave it to his cronies so they would vote for him. Grand theft is kind of against the law. Of course, car theft on that scale is now laudable.
• Mr. Obama stole your doctor and your health plan from you and gave it to the Big Insurance so they would pay for his election. Graft is kind of against the law. Of course, graft on that scale is now laudable.
• Mr. Obama exchanged five Taliban terrorists for an American deserter. That’s not just against policy; it’s against the law. Of course, breaking the law in the oval office is now laudable.
• Mr. Obama’s Justice Department illegally sold thousands of guns to criminals and refused to comply with congressional subpoenas about the operation. A sting is deceptive, probably unethical, but common; Fast and Furious wasn’t a sting. Supplying weapons to criminals and terrorists is kind of against the law. Newspeak calls it merely a “management problem.”
• Mr. Obama’s people falsely portrayed the Benghazi terrorist attack as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim YouTube video, and then lied about White House involvement. Perjury is kind of against the law. Newspeak calls it merely a “management problem.”
• Mr. Obama’s IRS illegally targeted conservative groups for heightened IRS scrutiny. Using government agencies for political acts is kind of against the law. Newspeak called it merely a “management problem” — Liberals said the IRS did it to liberal groups, too.
• Mr. Obama’s IRS refunded more than $46 million to nearly 24,000 illegal aliens using the same Atlanta, GA address. Fraud is kind of against the law. Newspeak calls it merely a “management problem.”

And there you have it.

A crim·i·nal /’krimənl/ is a person who has committed a crime.

The newspeak argument to recast crimes as “hope and change” or “management problems” or “good politics” is worse than giving the burglar the keys to your house or the murderer a deadly weapon or the used car salesman your checkbook. We trust burglar and the murderer and the used car salesman to do us wrong. We’re supposed to trust those we elect to do us right.

The Obamanation has not only violated the law, they have shredded that trust.