TAXES

[FireHazard51 | 2,105]

On 4/13/2023 at 6:49 AM, Hammerfestus said:

I pay my taxes like a man; I don’t whine about it like a little bitch.  

Vote yes on every tax increase that’s not sales tax.  
 

I'm with you Hammer, I vote on tax increases that go toward government services.  I did vote on a small sales tax increase, 0.3%, since it was so small AND it made a big impact to helping the local public transportation avoid cutting services and instead increased them.  Transportation is 100% something that everyone benefits from so I'm good with taxing everyone for that.  Not a fan of cutting people's property/income tax to then increase the sales tax to make up for the lose of tax revenue.  

 

Also I haven't done my taxes yet so you what I'm doing this weekend....

Spoiler

 

[Hammerfestus | 4,107]

10 minutes ago, FireHazard51 said:

I'm with you Hammer, I vote on tax increases that go toward government services.  I did vote on a small sales tax increase, 0.3%, since it was so small AND it made a big impact to helping the local public transportation avoid cutting services and instead increased them.  Transportation is 100% something that everyone benefits from so I'm good with taxing everyone for that.  Not a fan of cutting people's property/income tax to then increase the sales tax to make up for the lose of tax revenue.  

Raising sales tax impacts the poor disproportionately.  Small increases can be  fine but there are those who want to rely on it because boo fucking hoo mah capital gains tax.  

[FireHazard51 | 2,105]

Early bird gets the worm.  I did my taxes two days early!  Taxes are easy, checks in the mail

Spoiler

I ended up with a combined state and fed tax return of $1,000.  My $2,500 medical bill this year only resulted in a $22 state return.  And that was only after I added health insurance premiums to the total out-of-pocket medical expenses.  

 

[fcgamer | 5,015]

I gave my colleague a proper scare last weekend by discussing taxes. American expat, hasn't filed for years...oops.

[avatar! | 1,944]

On 4/17/2023 at 2:22 PM, fcgamer said:

I gave my colleague a proper scare last weekend by discussing taxes. American expat, hasn't filed for years...oops.

You're saying your colleague was supposed to file taxes all these years... and did not?

To my understanding, every citizen of the USA has to file taxes regardless of where they live.

Edited April 28, 2023 by avatar!

[fcgamer | 5,015]

18 hours ago, avatar! said:

You're saying your colleague was supposed to file taxes all these years... and did not?

To my understanding, every citizen of the USA has to file taxes regardless of where they live.

There are a lot of misconceptions relating to taxes for American expats living abroad. Even my (old) tax person back in the States had got it wrong, small town tax person to be fair, but I finally fired her and got advice from an international tax specialist in my State in 2020 right before COVID hit and got things straightened out.

For the curious (or any other Americans living abroad here), the misconception generally revolves around the fact that if you are American and are living abroad, as long as you earn less than 100K per year (or something like this, the threshold may have changed), you don't need to PAY taxes to Uncle Sam.

That being said, everyone still has an obligation to at least file their taxes in the States, the FBAR and whatever else, even if under the threshold for paying taxes.

I straightened things out a few years ago and it was due to this that I was eligible for and received all of the COVID relief money, but my colleague (who has been over in Taiwan since 2015 or so...has dual citizenship as his parents are Taiwanese Americans) assumed incorrectly like I did for years, thanks to the incompetence of my former tax person, that under the threshold = don't need to file.

So my colleague likely doesn't owe anything, but if the IRS is feeling anal and wants to probe into his situation a bit more, he could be screwed and face fines for not filing his FBARs and whatever else, etc.