Monthly Archives: February 2022

Reprint of The Post May 11, 2021 Protect Your Family Budget By Making Your Voice Heard

Posted on by

It is so sad that the majority of the people did not take Joe Biden at his word when he said he was going to do all these things which would destroy our way of life and ended up voting for him. It is all right to have voter’s remorse now and admit you made a choice that is affecting us now and for years to come in a negative way. Please resolve to do something about that bad choice and elect a Congress and Senate that will begin to bring the United States back to stability.

(Reprint of May 11, 2021 Post)
It is surprising how few people contact their representatives in government to express their preferences and views. I am told by a Congressman and U.S. Senator only a few people tell them what they want and it is the same people after then consistently. We need to decide what our priorities are as far as living in the society we are faced with. Make a list, for example: 1) Getting the kids back in school and teaching them an honest curriculum 2) Taxation by the Federal Government and where it goes 3)Regaining our freedom after the pandemic.
4) Higher Education and their tendency to plant socialism in the minds of the students 5)Voting rights bills and the purpose behind adopting them.

The names and addresses of all the U.S. Congressman and Congresswomen can be found on the internet. Construct letters and inquiries that make clear what you want your representatives to do and that you will not take “NO” for an answer. Multiple letters in different forms may be necessary. Invite your representatives to call , email , or write you. Get a dialog going. Try to see their point and if it is not congruent with yours tell them why and ask them to change their ideas.

We have been talking about the Federal level of government but the state, local , and school government, are equally as important. Go to the town council meetings , get on the agenda and express you disagreements and tell them why they need to rethink what they are doing. Go to party caucuses and volunteer to be a delegate at the conventions. Support local candidates that will maintain your views and will listen to the electorate.

Contribute small amounts of money to candidates you are passionate about. Volunteer to help with the candidate’s campaign. If you feel you are ready to run for an office, prepare yourself financially and mentally to go the distance to the election and beyond. It takes a tough person to withstand the criticism and opposition when running for office. Ask yourself am I totally committed to carry this campaign to the conclusion and beyond. Am I willing to listen to my friends , neighbors, and opposition , if elected?

More candidates holding office need to organize their voting base so they are the salesmen and saleswomen to sell their legislation to the public.

The address to write to the President is on the internet. Write to the President often. Also write to legislators from other parts of the country than your own and solicit their support for your ideas. Be critical of representatives that are trying to slam through legislation that is damaging to society, let them know what you think.

Every waking hour there is work to be done. With the pandemic and so many people working from home or unemployed it is a good time to check your priorities and start involving yourself with government reform. I encourage you go get started now. It is so sad that the electorate could not see what was going to happen if we took Joe Biden at his word, open borders, no fossil fuels, “Green New Deal”, free education for all, school from age 3, cancel culture, destroying our history, defund the police. I can see nothing in Joe Biden’s platform that is positive. Write to the President expressing your dissatisfaction with his policies. People say Joe doesn’t care what you think, tell him anyway and help with campaigns to get opposition control of Congress so a lot of this non-sense can be stopped in 2022.

Posted in Uncategorized

Determining How You Are Going To Have Your Family Personal Income Tax Return Prepared?

Posted on by

Each year everyone has to make the decision of who is going to prepare their income tax return. If you own a business you probably need to select a professional to prepare the business return or Schedule C on your 1040 Individual Return. If your income is primarily supported by W-2 forms and other forms submitted by the payer, for example Social Security and Retirement Income Payors, then possibly you want to use a tax preparer or do it yourself using a program like Turbotax.

H & R Block and the tax services with all the people waving at you on the street are a very expensive way to get a rather simple tax return prepared. The base rate is quite high for a simple individual return. The expensive part of their services is when they offer to give you your refund within 24 hours and you sign over the refund coming back from IRS. If you compute the interest rate on an annual basis it can be several hundred percent. For example a military person with just W-2 income selects the plan to get his money within 24 hours. The cost might be as much as $150, basically the tax service is loaning you the money until the refund comes which they take in payment for the loan. Let’s say this person has a $750 tax refund coming back and the charge was $150 for that service, the tax refund usually comes within a month. $150 for one months interest on $750 be $1800 on an annualized basis. Divide $1800/750 would result in an interest rate of 240%. This type of service also wants to sell you audit protection service for $50 and above and if they file the forms electronically you may have to pay additional for that service. Audit protection says they will represent you in tax court to support the return they have filed. Any principal and interest due after an IRS audit is the responsibility of the taxpayer. If the tax service makes an error resulting in more taxes being due and penalty and interest. The tax service usually agrees to pay the interest but not the penalty.

Considering the case I presented above, if your tax return is pretty straight forward and supported by documents from your employer, retirement plan or Social Security, then consider doing it yourself with the help of Turbotax. There are several versions of Turbotax depending on the income to be reported. If a person just has supported income , interest, dividends and capital gains, then Turbotax Deluxe will work for you. If you have business income requiring a Schedule C with the form 1040 you will need the Turbotax Business version. The Turbotax Deluxe verson costs about $60 and you have the choice of purchasing the disk at Officemax, Walmart, Costco, and outlets carrying Turbotax. If you need the Turbotax Business, it will cost about $20 more. Also you are given the choice on line by Intuit that is the provider of Turbotax to download the various Turbotax products. There are also Turbotax versions for Partnerships and Business.

If you purchase Turbotax, load it onto your computer, also select add current updates when it appears on the screen. After you have entered the personal information, it asks if you want them to guide you through the return or do you want to do it on your own. If you are new to Turbotax and even if you are familiar with this system select Guide Me Through The Tranactions. When you come to the end of the return Turbotax will do an error check and show you any areas where information is missing or does not make sense, after you have corrected those errors , it will say no errors found. Turbotax also offers an audit representation service in the event you are audited for a fee, I do not select that but you can. Then Turbotax shows a graph showing what the percentage chances are you will be audited, it shows the range from low to high. If the audit chance is low you should be ok. If it is high you need to keep all the backup handy in the event of an audit.