I calculated what the interest on my money would have been considering if I'd put the entire amount that the government owes me back into the highest return financial instrument I have available to me for an entire year ... it comes to $21.
I guess for some people, that $21 is a make or break issue and they'd rather pay taxes owed at the end of the year. I can think of a lot better ways to accrue wealth than worrying about a small amount of tax overpayment for this amount of interest gain. It would be best if the government owed me nothing and I owed them nothing but it's hard to achieve exactly that prior to the final tax rules for a given year being published, and that usually happens in January-February of the following year, just before tax paperwork is due to be filed. Of course, it is stupid to either overpay or underpay your taxes by an enormous amount of money. Whether the money belongs to them or not, philosophically, is irrelevant from a practical standpoint: government will take its tithe. Godfrey On Apr 16, 2007, at 8:03 AM, P. J. Alling wrote: > That's the assumption that makes it all a farce. None of it is the > Government's money... > > graywolf wrote: >> It is money people lend the government with no interest. In the US we >> have a federal income tax that is collected with payroll >> withholding by >> your employer. People declare less deductions than they are >> allowed and >> thus their tax is over paid. When they file their tax returns at the >> beginning of the next year, they get that overpayment back. >> >> Dumb people think of it as some kind of bonus. Slightly less dumb >> people >> think of it as enforced savings. Smart people arrange things so >> instead >> they owe the government some money that they have carefully left >> in an >> interest bearing account until they have no choice but to pay out >> to the >> IRS (Internal Revenue Service, the tax collecting agency of the US >> Government), thus collecting interest on the government's money >> rather >> than lending their money to the them at no interest. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
