Taxes (税金)

Japanese for taxes is Zeikin. (I may have done an entry on this already, at some point I imagine I'll repeat an entry just because I forget the titles that I do).

Today I did my taxes for the 2015 year, and it was pretty alarming I pay. I empathize with those who support Bernie Sanders and like the idea of free public education and universal healthcare, but as I grow older and more time in the work force (and out of school) I realize why Republicans are Republicans and want to keep more of their money instead of let it go to unknown government projects, public works, etc. Not that I'm complaining, but I learned that I gave $900-plus forced dollars to the California disability fund this year, quite a lot for each person to giving but from my volunteering I learned that there are lots of disabilities and lots of people needing those accommodations, so what's an able-bodied guy who's never experienced hardship to complain?

Doing my taxes was also personally beneficial to get a sense of how I'm doing financially, how much a year I can make, how much I'm spending, what I should expect to be spending next year, finding old tax receipts and keeping records, it's like a nice reset to the year in terms of money. It's really actually where we should make our New Year's Resolutions, at least financially: spend this amount of money only, get into this tax bracket, etc, etc. My family always uses a joint TurboTax account, and the questions the software asks always gives me hope: Did you own a home in 2015? (No, but maybe I'll buy one this year and enjoy whatever treasures are under the rainbow of home ownership?) Were you still single in 2015? (Sadly, yes, why you gotta bring that up? Who are you, my parents?) but also, but if I got married, what kind of prize do I get? Etc. Donating to charities does bring the taxable income down. It's actually not exactly like this mathematically, but I think of it as, for every $100 I'm giving, I'm saving $20-30 (whatever my tax bracket is) in taxable income, so I'm really only "losing" $70-80. And hey, maybe the charity actually does what they say they do with the money and it goes to a good cause.

I keep donating $5,500 to my IRA account! I always get this minor fear sometimes that this whole "IRA" and "retirement" myth gets hacked into or blows up somehow, my money all goes away, and I've just been losing a big chunk of change every year for nothing! Or, I die prematurely before withdrawing my IRA. THAT would be really bad too.

Any advice? Maybe do you taxes early if you think you're getting a refund? Re-invest that money into money right away and maybe get 2-3 months of interest rate? Oh, also, put as much money from checkings into savings. Finally, those dividends from stock investments look pretty nice (Hey, I got money just for owning stock!) but they get taxed pretty heavily cuz they're capital gains essentially, and as we've seen from Bernie Sanders, big government HATES capital gains. Speaking of which, the individual/ personal finance/ tax ramifications if Hilary or Trump become president: Trump would be possibly good for business but might destroy the country (win the battle but lose the war), Hilary might keep Obama's taxes the same, and if Hilary gets indicted leaving the presidency for Bernie, and we should just say goodbye to our paychecks forever. (just kidding but somewhat true)

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan