Taxes
Today was a crazy day at work - as usual. Too much of it. I came home late at night, checked our mail and found a letter from the IRS for my apartment-mate. It seemed an innocuous little letter, but I was bursting with curiosity, eager to know its contents. As soon as I entered our house, I gave the mail to him and was waiting in anticipation for him to open it. He sensed this and purposely took his time - examining it all round, looking at his name (as if that was going to be any different) and finally opened it. Inside there was a check of 500 dollars for him to spend - a gift from our president to stimulate the economy! And here I was thinking that it must be some sort of a tax thing that he had forgotten to fill. He was already planning his weekend schedule - Macy's followed by Abercrombie&Fitch etc. etc. while I looked at him - green with envy.
Nothing in life is as certain as death and taxes they say. What about death + taxes? Yes, dead people also need to pay taxes. No one can escape the clutches of the IRS, not even the deceased. These taxes are called "estate taxes" or "inheritance taxes" though, to make them sound tolerable to us. The tax is imposed on transfers of property made after the death of the owner, such as a transfer of property or the payment of certain life insurance benefits.
Another crazy tax related thing that I recently read about was the FairTax idea. It was espoused by Mike Huckabee during the presidential nominations. The basic concept is to completely remove taxation and replace it with sales tax on all goods and services purchased by an individual, keeping purchases made up to the poverty line tax-free. This wild concept is supposed to resolve the problems that our current tax system are facing. It is supposed to be conducive to business and is going to make us save money for a change. Whatever its proponents say - implementing it is going to be impossible. The monthly book-keeping involved will make it a logistical nightmare. People could earn tax free US dollars and spend them in other countries. There will be an automatic fall in domestic consumption. Also, what about government spending? Will that be taxed too - highly unlikely!! All factors considered, it doesn't seem like our current "unfair" taxation system is going anywhere...
Nothing in life is as certain as death and taxes they say. What about death + taxes? Yes, dead people also need to pay taxes. No one can escape the clutches of the IRS, not even the deceased. These taxes are called "estate taxes" or "inheritance taxes" though, to make them sound tolerable to us. The tax is imposed on transfers of property made after the death of the owner, such as a transfer of property or the payment of certain life insurance benefits.
Another crazy tax related thing that I recently read about was the FairTax idea. It was espoused by Mike Huckabee during the presidential nominations. The basic concept is to completely remove taxation and replace it with sales tax on all goods and services purchased by an individual, keeping purchases made up to the poverty line tax-free. This wild concept is supposed to resolve the problems that our current tax system are facing. It is supposed to be conducive to business and is going to make us save money for a change. Whatever its proponents say - implementing it is going to be impossible. The monthly book-keeping involved will make it a logistical nightmare. People could earn tax free US dollars and spend them in other countries. There will be an automatic fall in domestic consumption. Also, what about government spending? Will that be taxed too - highly unlikely!! All factors considered, it doesn't seem like our current "unfair" taxation system is going anywhere...
posted by ritwick at 7:44 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting to know.
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