I think my return is going to be a bit more than last year, but not much. But I bought a house and got married, so that helped the numbers a bit.
Man that sucks. :/
Yep. We’re adding piles and piles of debt while unemployment is low and the economy is growing. I hope Democrats really hammer on this during the election (of course, what’ll really happen is Republicans and corporate media running around with their hair on fire screeching socialism! The irony.)
And if Democrats do win control, Republicans will immediately pivot to panic about the deficit and demand deep cuts to social spending. The media will of course amplify the debt fear-mongering as they always do during Democratic regimes.
As nearly as I can tell, not being completely finished, I’m going to owe $974 this year. After getting about a $500 refund last year. So roughly $1500 turn-around, and that is even with a reduced income for my wife, who was out of work for a couple of months.
I haven’t even touched state taxes yet :(
At the very least, inheriting such steep deficits significantly constrains any plans the Dems might have regarding health care or education.
Yes, that is what Republicans will say, but it’s bullshit.
Generally agree, but that might also depend on how (if) changes in healthcare are implemented. Krugman op-ed on this from a couple days ago.
Finally, my third category is major system overhaul, of which the archetype would be replacing employer-based private health insurance with a tax-financed public program – the purist version of Medicare for all. A really major expansion of Social Security might fall into that category too, although smaller enhancements might not.
Proposals in this category are literally an order of magnitude more expensive than benefit enhancements: private health insurance currently amounts to 6 percent of GDP. To implement these proposals, then, we’d need a lot more revenue, which would have to come from things like payroll taxes and/or a value-added tax that hit the middle class.
You can argue that most middle-class families would be better off in the end, that the extra benefits would more than compensate for the higher taxes. And you’d probably be right. But this would be a much heavier political lift. You don’t have to be a neoliberal tool to wonder whether major system overhaul should be part of the Democratic platform right now, even if it’s something many progressives aspire to.
My main point now, however, is that when people ridicule progressive proposals as silly and unaffordable, they’re basically revealing their own biases and ignorance. Investment can and should be debt-financed; benefit enhancements can be largely paid for with high-end taxes. Howard Schultz won’t like it, but that’s his problem.
Krugman should be directing our economic policies.
Also, the real solution is to relieve the burden of benefits for health insurance off of private companies and institute a single payer system that is non-profit. No for profit healthcare no for profit hospitals. One health insurance program in itself would shave a massive amount of money off healthcare. Then we treat pharmaceutical companies like a utility and regulate them and another massive amount of healthcare expenses are cut.
We can afford to do this, but we need to do it right and that means one health insurance entity, one entity to govern prices, and no profit based consortiums.
So I just did my taxes today and despite losing out some deductions due to the SALT limit and because my wife’s business made a small profit instead of a small loss, it turns out I owe around $320. So I guess that’s a good outcome, since I was expecting to have to pay thousands. FYI I got around $6000 back last year so it was a big swing. I’m getting 100 back from the state so all in all it was much less than I was expecting.
I’ll tell you one thing though, since I ended up taking the standard deduction it sure made completing my taxes fast.
Sure, but another way of looking at it is that the convenience cost you about $6000. You could have paid an accountant a whole lot less than that to do your taxes.
Well said. Republicans raised our taxes. Or more accurately transferred the tax burden from corporations to the people and increased the deficit to give an extra bonus to the inherited wealthy like Trump (surprise surprise).
I really despise these fuckers.
My taxes are done, not much change at all. I had ~4K more income this year but also booked a 3K long-term capital loss, so income more or less the same. Difference in total income tax was $20 less this year than last.
I wasn’t looking for a reduction (I’m happy to pay more taxes and always have been) just curious about what the difference would be. For me, the increase in the standard deduction more than offset the las of the personal exemption.
Edit: I did have to pay, but only because I made no quarterly payments this year due to overpayment last year. It seems to be a cycle, where one year I make quarterly payments and overpay, next year I don’t make quarterly payments and then have to pay.
Sure, but another way of looking at it is that the convenience cost you about $6000. You could have paid an accountant a whole lot less than that to do your taxes.
That’s not how tax liability work. This isn’t how any of this works! You can’t compare a tax refund in one year to taxes paid the following year and say see this cost me money.
Oh dear, this is clearly the Democrats fault, how fast can we cut government programs to solve this problem…
Yes, especially ones that don’t shovel government money to big donors. Those are always held harmless. But the people relying on food stamps (SNAP benefits) not to starve? Fuck 'em, amirite?
While I have no doubt the GOP will push for that, I thought their time-proven strategy was to grab all the money and fuck up the budget, purposefully, then blame the debt on the next democrat that takes over. It is ingrained in GOP tradition.
Yep, they’ll be back to howling about the deficit in 2021.
Some idiot on Fox this morning was just flat out lying about how the stock market floundered under Obama and never recovered until Trump took over. And of course no one called him out on it. The economy was just in shambles until 2016. I just don’t see how Democrats can compete with such a well-oiled propaganda machine.
Well to be fair, we -try- to compete with broad changing new programs or benefits to citizens. Then we get hammered for previously mentioned budgets and deficits that we aren’t fully responsible for. It’s become a go-to for every democratic president lately to have to address fixing our budget and at least trying to address the growing deficit.
And yet somehow the GOP is the, “fiscally responsible,” party.