Category Archives: Taxed Again

!@#$%^ Blockheads

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Like millions of Americans (except Rufus), I used tax preparation software again this year. Rufus is about the only individual filer I know who uses a computer and who does his taxes in a spreadsheet.

Like millions of Americans (except Rufus), I wanted to “click here” and have a finished return print out with the stamp(s) already attached.

Sigh.

I don’t much like Intuit’s Tubbo™ Tax™. I’ve had years of experience trying to get that program to manage my not-very-complicated mix of a couple of small businesses and some 1099s from Charles Schwab, a brokerage house of which neither Intuit nor H&R Block has heard. I decided to try the other guys this year.

Yup, I bought into H&R Block At Home™. Deluxe.

Mr. Block will be history here in No Puffin in 2011.

My first run through, it gave me twice the mortgage interest deduction I had entered. I’m sure I made a mistake by putting it in twice, but I have no idea where. I burned down that return and started over using the tax-software-for-dummies interview exclusively.

“That is the problem with these freakin’ programs,” Rufus said. “They presume you have no idea what you are doing (or that you know the software intimately.)”

When I assumed I knew what I was doing, Mr. Block said I would owe a few grand more in taxes than I had already paid in. That was also when I saw Mr. Block had doubled the declarable mortgage interest I claimed.

Time passes.

The time came to checkprint the Vermont return (“full return for filing” the Blockheads call it). Mr. Block did not print the three Vermont homestead claim forms. Vermont has those forms online as PDFs, fortunately, because nobody mails tax booklets any more. Unfortunately, all I can do is print them and fill them out by hand.

Transferring all the appropriate figures from one form to the next (which is why we all buy tax software) and doing the calculations (which is why we all buy tax software) is all on me.

By hand.

!@#$%^ Blockheads.

I don’t care how much trouble Tubbo gave me, at least it printed all the freaking forms I need.

The very nice overseas tech support girl said, “First I want you to reinstall Windows…”

Actually, she sent me a link to download a new copy of the program. Yes, they wanted me to uninstall my current copy of H&R Block At Home™ and install the new copy. As expected, the new copy of the program comes with exactly the same state feature as the purchased CD has, meaning that after I install it, I must then download the Vermont files from exactly the same place I got them last time.

!@#$%^ Blockheads.

So I uninstalled the old version and installed the new one. The uninstall apparently did not remove the registry entries because it knew just where I had left all the data files.

Time passes.

Mr. Block includes an Error Check. It found a bunch, many related to Copy 9 of the Vehicle Worksheet for which the program couldn’t figure out in which Schedule C it belonged. Their Forms Central display is so crammed together that I simply can’t tell what data it has, let alone where it belongs.

Time to checkprint the Vermont return. Again. Everything is still smushed together.

Mr. Block has a nice online forum with bonafide tax experts just moments away to answer your pressing tax questions in real time. I posted as “Disappointed User” yesterday evening.

“Q: This program won’t print anything but squeezed together ‘Not For Filing’ pages.”

Mr. Block answered my question this morning at 4:39 ayem through Kathleen Drenzek, Master Tax Advisor and Enrolled Agent who wrote: “Disappointed, did you try rebooting your computer to see it that works. Or call tech support at 1-800-HRBLOCK.”

Another happy user worried about this:

“Q: software is telling me I sent my tax estimate late and owe a fee- but in RI we got an extension last year. What to do?”

Jayant Kanitkar, Master Tax Advisor and Enrolled Agent wrote: “If you believe otherwise, pay only the amount due.” What, is he nuts?

I think I did resolve the smushy question. When it prints its “mini worksheets,” it sends out the smushed up text you see in the example. When it print the return forms alone, they appear to come out fine.

OK, sort of fine. It is still printing three blank copies of Form 4562-page 1, but I can simply throw those away. And it keeps putting xxxxxxxxxxxxx in for the bank account number. Means no e-filing for me, though.

Looks like I cannot use even the one form TaxCut DID print. Here’s the word from the Vermont Tax Department:

FORMS THAT CANNOT BE PROCESSED
If your filing is not acceptable for our processing equipment, the Department may send your filing back to you… The Department may also transfer your filing information onto acceptable forms but you can be assessed a $25 processing fee that partially covers the costs of transferring the information. Examples of unacceptable filings are: forms marked “draft”, forms not pre-approved by the Department, photocopies of forms, faxed forms, writing in other than blue or black ink, and mixing computer generated forms with forms printed by the Department.

This software used to be called TaxCut but H&R Block wanted to leverage their own name to boost sales.
Why?

If this were my program, I’d never put my name on it. I might call it Rufus’ TaxCut. Anything but Dick’s Own Software.

Despite all that, I made the trip to the post office today. All three returns are in the mail at a cost of only three Forever stamps and two additional ounces at the new-today rate.

I wonder if the IRS shares DNA samples collected today with other agencies.

I Told You So.

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But did anybody listen? Nooooooooooooooooo.

And so it begins: Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has proposed a budget for the new year. Gov. Shumlin is a “Big-D” Demorat but one who won’t raise taxes. Gov. Shumlin’s budget increases the provider tax on Vermont’s hospitals by $17.4 million.

A “provider tax” ain’t a real tax, right?

The gov says this increase will simply “maximize the draw down” of matching Federal Medicaid dollars to help fill the State’s budget shortfall. It will tax hospitals, physicians, Home Health Agencies, and pretty much any other healthcare providers. Probably even WalMart because they (used to be able to) sell prescriptions for $4 which makes them a provider.

“Hey, Dick! I get my scrips from Wally now,” Raul Garcia told me. “Did you know that some of the stores charge me sales tax on them some of the time. Some don’t.” Mr. Garcia is North Puffin’s best known hypochondriac and was our most respected grant writer until that little trouble with the Feds. He ended up serving 18 months of a four year sentence for fraud after he used the $4 million he “borrowed” from a major pharmaceutical company as the matching funds for an $8 million corporate gene splicing study at North Puffin College of Veterinary Medicine. The Pharma got their “investment” back when the grant came in. It wasn’t the first time. Even so, he says he has not yet determined which phase of the Moon determines the sales tax boondoggle.

Back on point. Northwestern Medical Center is a small, friendly, not-for-profit, hospital in St. Albans, Vermont. In the interest of full disclosure, I served on the Board of Incorporators for NMC for more than a decade. This regional, primary care facility offers a broad range of high-tech medical equipment and services to the area.

For that one local hospital’s privately insured patients, the added tax means sharing an increase of $350,000 in tax expense alone in the coming year. Yeppers, ObamaCare is gonna reduce the cost of medicine.

And Gov. Shumlin is right at the forefront of that reduction. Newspeak. Word.

No small town hospital is more vital to the community and none is better liked. NMC has earned national Avatar awards for the last three years for patient satisfaction but that’s just part of the story. They sponsor local events like the ArTrain and the Summer Sounds concert series. They field teams for the United Way. And 600 of our friends and neighbors work there.

The original St. Albans Hospital was built in 1883. It has grown and morphed from two hospitals into one that now cares for 1,900 inpatients each year. The E.R. sees over 28,000 emergency patients and 7,000 people already walk in to the new Walk-In Clinic in Georgia each year. 400 babies arrive via storks at the Family Birth Center. That all adds up to more than $129 million of patient care each year.

Gov. Shumlin “proposes to increase the tax assessed on hospitals by $17.4 million from 2011. This increase will be used to draw down Federal funds to help address the State budget shortfall,” NMC Chief Executive Officer Jill Bowen told the St. Albans Messenger. “However, the State no longer returns the provider tax to the hospitals in full after it has secured the matching funds.”

In case you missed it, the State of Vermont told the Feds they took in beaucoup bucks as matching funds to increase the “grant” money funneled back to the state. Then the State of Vermont gave most of those beaucoup bucks back to the hospitals.

“Hey, Dick?” Raoul Garcia said. “Isn’t that what I went to jail for?”

Exchange?

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Jody Beauregard is a sweet, gentle man who has worked on Tom Ripley’s garbage truck for a decade or so. Before that, he schlepped shingles up ladders for Dean Russell when Dino still had his business in North Puffin.

Providence smiled on Jody three years ago. He scored an indoor job with dental insurance and regular hours. First time he had ever worked 40 hours per week and with a building contractor, so he got to see the “comfortable” end of the construction business.

Until the comfortable got dissed in the meltdown. The contractor laid him off a year later, on his 65th birthday.

Jody didn’t mind too awful bad. He was collecting Unemployment and had enough quarters in to retire. He likes to take off every fall to hunt anyway and expects to put up enough meat to last him through the year then but retirement, ah retirement, would let him feel more relaxed at deer camp.

Or not.

Jody collected about $280/week in UI but he also qualified for $1,286/month net in Social Security. And, of course, he qualified for Medicare. He signed up for Part B. He was in double dipper’s clover. Until Unemployment ran out. And the Unemployment extension ran out. And the extended Unemployment extension ran out.

Early last year, the Great State of Vermont decided to “give” him some medical coverage and to pay his Part B Medicare insurance premium. He was in pig heaven. I’m a pretty fair reporter but I still don’t know how he got on Vermont’s Health Access Plan (VHAP) list or what the requirements are.

It’s an elegant, enchanting, thought-provoking system. In August, September, and October of last year, for example, Social Security charged Jody nothing for his Part B coverage. He was still receiving Unemployment compensation during those months. In November, Social Security deducted the Part B premium from his check. He has received no Unemployment payments that month or since. In December, Vermont paid the Part B premium. In January and February Social Security deducted the Part B premium again but some time last year, he got an unexplained $142 extra deposit from Social Security. Confused yet? I am. The premium Jody pays Vermont has also bounced around, month-by-month, between $15 and $50 per month with no explanation.

A Vermont minion told Jody that the reason the state is not paying his premium anymore is that he “makes too much money.” And yet, his unemployment ended in October and his Social Security check — his only income — is unchanged for the third year in a row. No COLA, doncha know.

They have yet to send statements or bills to him. He has asked for but never received an Explanation of Coverage so he has no idea what the $15 (or $50) he pays each month buys him. Vermont has an sensational online presence but no account Jody can log in to, so he has never known how much the premium for the medical coverage they give him is. “I’m pretty sure it is the Plan B I signed up for plus prescription coverage,” he told me. Sheesh.

The Vermont rep told him he makes too much money but still won’t tell him what poke he gets for his pig.

These are the very people who want to run our car manufacturers (and other businesses) and our statewide health care system.

Gov. Peter Shumlin wants to set up a Health Insurance Exchange. In exchange for what?

“Exchange” as a verb usually means to trade someone one something for a different something else that person has or to replace (perhaps defective) merchandise with its working equivalent. As a noun, we say it is that same something that was given or received as a substitute for something else. Sometimes an exchange is a place, like the Stock Exchange, for buying and selling commodities or securities. That kind of exchange is typically open only to members.

Vermont lawmakers got their first thorough look at the guv’s plans for his beloved single-payer health care system last week. Mr. Shumlin plans to start this year by setting up the same state health insurance exchange the constitutionally-challenged Obamacare calls for.

Mr. Shumlin wants more. His state health insurance exchange will help drive the last commercial insurers out of Vermont and serve as his springboard to moving the state to a single-payer system in micro-steps. This year, he will create a new Vermont Health Reform Board not to control health system costs but rather to dictate how much the state will pay providers for services.

The administration will not unveil its financing plan for the new system until 2013, two years after the system is in place.

Perhaps one year after Mr. Shumlin is no longer in place.

“It’ll be good, Mr. Dick,” Jody Beauregard told me. “I can exchange my plan for something even better.”

Uh huh.

Remember Jody’s experience. Guess who made his life so easy? Happy Valentine’s Day, Jody.

People’s Republic of Vermont

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While North Puffin joined much of the country in leaning more to the right, Vermont Democrats won the guv’s office and will continue to strongarm the Legislature. Dems will control the Senate, 21-8, and have a 94-47 majority over Repugs in the House. The People’s Republic of Vermont, long envisioned by Howard Dean and Cheryl Rivers, has finally come to be.

Turnout was high across Vermont yesterday; towns around North Puffin posted record numbers of voters at the polls. It didn’t help.

You know about all the states banning ObamaCare? In Vermont, Peter Shumlin and Company’s first move will be to pass the entire 12,000 page federal act as a state law. They will make some changes, though. None of the namby-pamby “you have to buy private insurance” rules. ShumpleCare will ban private insurers.

Don’t be surprised if your taxes go up a skoch.





Taxation with Representation

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Guess what tomorrow is. Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either:

  • Every legislator gets elected by spending someone else’s money.
  • Every legislator stays in office by spending someone else’s money.
  • No legislator has left office poorer than when he arrived.

Got any other questions?


I voted Friday. Followed my plan not to vote for any politician who talked about his or her opponent.

Here in Florida, in addition to mainstream races for governor and U.S. Senator, we’re electing an Attorney General, a CFO, a couple of School Directors to replace the ones who hired the last set of (alleged) crooks, a state rep, two county commissioners to replace the ones who hired the last set of (alleged) crooks, two Mosquito Board directors to replace the ones who hired the last set of (alleged) crooks, and a Commissioner of Agriculture.

Charles Bronson who is neither Charlie Bronson nor Charles Bronson has served as ag commissioner since 2001. He was born into a ranching family in Kissimmee and has a Bachelor of Science in agricultural education plus animal and meat sciences from the University of Georgia. He’s retiring so the open seat has attracted the usual critters.

Agriculture brings in $102 billion/year; it is Florida’s second largest industry. Only Tourism does more. It is also the state’s lead consumer protection agency. One candidate for the job is a young career politician and former state rep and congressman, with support from the opposing party. A second candidate was said to “do to agriculture what he does to everything else, use it for his own good. He was a worthless mayor who managed to double his salary and he ran the Democratic party into virtual bankruptcy.” Another is called a “fake teapartier.”

It’s simple. If one guy in the race talks about the other, he’s probably lying. Vote for the other guy, no matter what. If they both do it (usually the case), figure they’re both lying and WRITE YOUR OWN NAME IN.

I may end up with a lot of jobs come January. Maybe even Public Assayer.

Over in Nevada, it’s hold your nose and vote as Harry Reid and his challenger Sharron Angle have the same problem. Voters don’t like either of them.

Here’s another story.

Founded 208 years ago in the Newton, Iowa, of 1893, Maytag was a $4.7 billion appliance company with the world’s loneliest repairman. It was headquartered there until 2006 when it became part of the Whirlpool conglomerate which moved the rest of Maytag manufacturing to Mexico and China. Newton residents are now the world’s loneliest people. This is a story about corporate outsourcing — Maytag probably would have moved with or without the Category 5 economic storm called the Great Recession — but the town remains depressed because no one else is stepping up to recreate those jobs. It’s a story playing out in every small town in America.

60 Minutes visited Newton last night. To a man or woman Newtonians don’t care whether Repuglicans or Demorats get elected tomorrow.

“I’m sick and tired of people going to Congress in Washington D.C. making a living at it while we starve to death.”

Exactly.


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