Tag Archives: IRS

LJ – The Taxman Cometh

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From 02/12/2003

Just polished off my taxes, Scott’s and Dan’s. Turns out I’ll be making quite the killing refund wise so I have decided to invest my money in three ways. One way is to completely disentangle myself from worrying over the fundage for our groups Gencon trip, second, to ferret cash away somewhere safe for an eventual trip to Wales (& Ireland, maybe), and the third bit I am not sure on just yet. A part of me wants to toss it at my credit debts, another part wants to have it broken into 5’s and 10’s and roll around in it like a horse with a bad back itch.

While putting some mileage on my Guncon2 controller for the PS/2 with my friend Dan from work we did taxes and chatted and I wondered why the feds don’t establish a monetary return (interest after all) on the withholding that I’ve been involuntarily paying via my employer, that would add a bit of flavoring to my 1040A for sure and be more fair to everyone.

Another thing I discovered tonight is that even though there are slight differences in withholding and such, I really got a taste for the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer while doing everyones taxes – the divide between Scott, Dan, and My income tax returns shows me how unbalanced income tax is and it angers me how it is affecting my friends.

Death and Taxes

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Last October my home mortgage, which was an ARM went from 5.8% to 2.75%. I went from worrying about the ARM going up to worried about my tax liability. So this year I processed my taxes and everything worked out. I claim 2 exemptions on my W-4 form at work, and I’ve grown accustomed to being able to take more of my pay home with me than leave in withholding.

So of course, the APR on my mortgage changed, so did that change how much mortgage interest will be? Of course it does. So I wrote an email to Wells Fargo Bank (they that hold my mortgage) and I asked what the projected amount of interest is that I’ll pay on my home for 2012. The response from WF was worthless – it amounted to “Yes sir, you have an ARM” Yeah, I KNOW THAT.

So I called WF. Talked with a nice lady who estimated my mortgage interest would go from about 3400 to 1000 or so. Definitely a change. So I went to TaxAct and filled out the W-4 calculator and it told me I should change to an exemption of 1. So I did that. Then as I sat there I was looking at my calculations and utterly forgot my HELOC! So I went back and added the interest from the HELOC, which is fixed, and then I saw that I was back to an exemption of 2. So now we’re on a deathwatch to see if I confused WMU Payroll enough with my flippity-flappity W-4 exemption fiddling.

At least for 2012 I don’t have to redo my budget to take into account less take-home pay. That’s a huge stone off my shoulders! Whew!

Say Goodbye Gracie

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Got this little marvel in the mail:

Employees using University owned cell phone/PDAs will be taxed on the fair market value, (in this case the cost to WMU), of the phone and plan.  All applicable payroll taxes will be applied.  For phones and devices already in use, we will tax the value of the plan only.  In order to properly account for University monies used to pay for dual use cell phones and ensure the fringe benefits are taxed properly, the voucher given to accounts payable to pay for such phone service must include or have attached a detail of the names and employee numbers of the employees and the respective amounts being paid for their phone/device.  For plans where the cost isn’t already broken down by phone, you will need to allocate the total cost to the phones if you are not already doing so for general ledger posting purposes.  Accounts payable will submit the cost information to the payroll department after they review to make sure all the cost is being accounted for.    Departments that are paying for University owned cell phones with a procurement card should submit the same information to the payroll department on a monthly basis.  No department should be paying for a non-University owned cell phone plan with a procurement card.

So on February 1st I will be surrendering my line at 269-599-7798. This will conclude my mobile telephony reach as well. I will most likely not be having any other phone as I cannot afford one. As a practical upshot to this, after February 1st I will be unavailable to telephone traffic for quite some time. There won’t be a replacement number as I don’t have the funds available to afford to replace such technology. If I am not at my office, I won’t be reachable. In the case of emergencies, they will have to be queued and held for me until I reach a place where I can access telephony equipment. Likewise, if I have an emergency I will be unable to call 911. Lets hope we don’t run into any of that sort of thing. This is 21st Century progress at it’s finest, folks. Let us rejoice.

As for our business mobile infrastructure?

Say Goodbye Gracie.