Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Taxes and Tithing

Well my hubby is doing the annual dance called figuring out your taxes. What a complex activity that is as you try to first of all FIND all the forms, then try to GATHER all the receipts from the past year plus LOCATE your tax papers from last year to guide you through the process. I like the way my church handles taxing (or TITHING). Mormons pay one tenth off the top of all their earnings before taxes. That's so much easier to figure out and of course if you want to donate more, you can.

This year I am going to be claiming income as a teacher and writer of articles and books. That makes me feel important I AM A WRITER and actually get a few dollars here and there from people buying my book or articles. Nothing much but nevertheless RECOGNITION. I also write a weekly column for a local paper but that's a freebie-get nothing but publicity and notoriety! Lol! So life has it's challenges and we hope to not have to pay any more taxes this year. Pres. Obama or someone else put in an addition of $1,000 to add to your standard deduction IF you pay real estate taxes which we do, so that should help. Hurrah, we get $25 back on our federal return now to do the state tax forms.

7 comments:

  1. I loved the term Annual dance.Hope you don't have to pay much .Here we are paying lesser because we have availed a home lone from a national bank...and that gives us tax saving benefits.

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  2. I'm interested in your church's tax/tithing system. Is this a suggested amount or does it have teeth in it to require Mormans to pay the 10%

    Baptists also suggest 10% but have no means to require members to give it. Their argument is always do you pay 10% on your income before or after taxes?

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  3. sometimes i don't understand govt. policy. they hike our salary only to take it back from us. and as kavita said if we have loans , we pay less tax. now is this encouraging us to take loans. i would prefer not to take loans but then have no choice.

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  4. I did my taxes in early February. I keep everything organized in a file all year long, so there is no digging for anything. I itemized to see what we'd get, but did better on the standard deduction since we have no debt/ not interest deductions. I should check my on line account. Maybe my refund has been deposited!

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  5. I keep (or at least attempt) all my tax papers together in a folder for the tax season. Was delighted to find our taxes deposited in the checking out a couple of weeks ago-yay!

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  6. we just did our taxes..always a chore

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  7. I've cancelled our appointment with the tax man 3 (yup! that's THREE times) I never keep any records. It drives Wayne completely crazy! We will have our day of reckoning the first week in April. Late this year.

    Our tax man tells us that the smartest people always get the smallest refunds. We much be absolutely brilliant!

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