Current Photo Friday theme: Waiting
Houston, April 15, 2008
As long ago as the 1970s in Alabama, I’d drive to local post offices on the last night people could get their tax returns in the mail to get them postmarked by the filing date. Some would be filling out their tax forms; others waited in line to hand over their envelopes. A lobby full of people late at night in a small town has a surreal quality. After I moved to Texas, I discovered that at some Houston post offices, traffic cops and postal employees worked that night to make sure people got in and out efficiently and their envelopes were time-stamped.
Now in the days of e-filing tax returns, I don’t know if this still happens. I haven’t driven to a post office on tax night in years. I’ll be thinking of those last-minute filers next week, though, and wishing them luck.
I am so glad that I don’t have file tax returns. I did, briefly, when I was self-employed, but employers do it here.
I can’t imagine that!
Yeah, it’s deducted by one’s employer – so the money paid over at the end of the month is the employee’s to keep.
Our employers also withhold taxes from our pay, but we still have to file our taxes and figure out if we overpaid or underpaid based on the multitude of deductions we are entitled to or whether we made income from other sources that also has to be reported.
It can be a very complicated system that no one really understands, but if you’re quite wealthy, you can pay people to help you use the system to hold on to your wealth and make you even wealthier.
As is the way of the world. Money goes to money.