Reform Taxes

Dear Internal Revenue Service:

Enclosed you will find my 2005 tax return showing that I owe $3,407.00 in taxes. Please note the attached article from the USA Today newspaper, dated 12 November, wherein you will see the Pentagon (Department of Defense) is paying $171.50 per hammer and NASA has paid $600.00 per toilet seat.

I am enclosing four (4) toilet seats (valued @ $2,400) and six (6) hammers valued @ $1,029), which I secured at Home Depot, bringing my total remittance to $3,429.00.

Please apply the overpayment of $22.00 to the "Presidential Election Fund," as noted on my return.  You can do this inexpensively by sending them one (1) 1.5 " Phillips Head screw (see aforementioned article from USA Today newspaper detailing how H.U.D. pays $22.00 each for 1.5" Phillips Head Screws).  One screw is enclosed for your convenience.

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year.

Sincerely,

A Satisfied Taxpayer

Thanks to Web-Funny

Brad Smith is the CEO of Intuit, the company that makes the leading tax-preparation software, TurboTax.  Smith shared with USAToday his vision for TuboTax of the future:

“Our dream is that a taxpayer would never have to enter a single piece of information, to have the ability to have all the information pulled from the various places and simply look at it and get the tax return done.”

This is the ideal, where all the information necessary to complete our income taxes is already digitally available and ready for automatic import into our tax preparation software.  Is such a nirvana even possible?  Smith continued:

“We launched a product this year in California called SnapTax.  It allows a simple return filer to take a picture of their W-2 with an iPhone and automatically import data into their TurboTax product and do their tax return for them.”

A joke floating around the Internet:

A father walks into a restaurant with his young son.  He gives the young boy three nickels to play with to keep him busy.

Suddenly, the boy starts choking and going blue in the face.  The father realizes the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back.  The boy coughs up two of the nickels, but keeps choking.  Looking at his son, the father starts to panic and shouts for help.

A well dressed, attractive and serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at a coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee.  At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts down her coffee cup, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter.  She then gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.

Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his trousers.  She takes hold of the boy’s testicles and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly.

After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last nickel, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand.

Releasing the boy’s testicles, the woman hands the nickel to the father and walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word.

As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her, saying, “I’ve never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic.  Are you a doctor?”

“No,” the woman replied.  “I’m with the Internal Revenue Service.”

(NAPSI) – According to the American Homeowners Association (AHA), recent sharp declines in home values make it likely that your property taxes are too high.  Fortunately, there are ways to find out if you are being overcharged and steps you can take to lower your property taxes.

The problem stems from the fact that property values have fallen unevenly across neighborhoods, towns and regions.  As a result, you may be receiving an unfairly-high assessment compared to other homes in your area.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former President George W. Bush, commenting on Sen. John Kerry’s proposal to rescind tax cuts for the wealthy:

“The really right people know how to dodge taxes anyway.”

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker will lead a panel to study options for U.S. tax reform and report back to President Obama by December 4.  The panel will study tax simplification, preventing tax evasion, and reducing corporate welfare.

"There are hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollected taxes each year," said Peter Orszag, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  "The task force on tax reform that will be formed by the Volcker board will be examining ways of being even more aggressive on reducing the tax gap."

Story at Reuters
More Obama News

Tax reform is the process of changing the way taxes are collected or managed by the government.

Tax reformers may have different goals:

• Reduce the level of taxation of all people by the government.
• Make the tax system more or less progressive in its effect.
• Simplify the tax system.

Adapted from Wikipedia