President Pants on Fire said there would be no new taxes for the middle class

Remember he said this during the campaign, and by "campaign" I mean February, 2007 until the present day, because the man never stops campaigning. It's what he's good at. And by that, I mean he's a good campaigner and that's about all.

But, I digress. To the matter at hand...

I'm going to tell you a hypothetically true story about a man named Paul. Paul is a good man. He has a wife and two kids. He's in his 50s and is a contractor. He's built his company from the ground up. He has a good income, but isn't RICH by any means.

Here's the sad part. Paul's got a bad ticker. He's a fighter, though. So there's hope.

After Christmas, Paul has a heart attack He's waiting for a transplant, but it doesn't look good. He lies on his deathbed, with those who love him surrounding him. They celebrate New Years Eve in the hospital. On New Years Day, slipping in and out of consciousness, he imparts his final words of love and wisdom to his family. He tells them that he has had a good life and that he has lived his dream to see his children grow and start families. He has no regrets. He tells them that in his will, he will leave the family business to his son and daughter, who have both worked to help the business grow.

Pual dies. He has planned well. He has made the arrangements and the family has the funeral and pays their respects. They tell their stories about their patriarch. Slowly, normalcy returns and they get back to their lives.

Until one day, the business receives a certified letter from the US government. It seems they have a tax matter to settle and they have to go downtown to see the IRS. Did the old man forget something, they wonder. He seemed to have everything else in order.

Yes, he forgot one thing. Well, not so much forgot. He just didn't know about it because it has been kept hush-hush.

Enter Obama. Stage left. (That's funny.)
In a footnote of the US budget, on page 127, the Estate Tax has been resurrected. Probably the most despised of all the taxes, commonly referred to as the "Death Tax," it was part of the Bush tax cuts of 2001, and it was hoped by many to be a memory of the old tax code.

Why is it despised? Because it is unfair.

"But why is it unfair?" you ask. Easy.

Taxes have already been paid on that income. He has built the business and lived comfortably, but is by no means rich. He makes a good living but, like many businesses started from the ground up, he has reinvested in it over many years. It is a small business, but has about $10 million in assets.

The government, by reinstituting the Death Tax, is now due 55% of what our hero has passed down. The company now owed $5.5 million on assets upon which Paul has already paid taxes. How do they handle this debt?

Selling the business is an option, but no one will buy the business with that kind of tax burden.They can take on the debt personally, but is that feasible or fair? The simple answer is "No," because, in all reality, they can't pay it. They don't pay themselves that much in salary.

Economic reality for the middle class.
A man lives his whole life, working and saving to pass something down to his kids so that they may have a better life. (Quiet down, feminists. I know women also do, but for the sake of this story, our hero is a man.)

Putting children in a position where they have to close the business and turn over assets is an economic reality. People will lose jobs. Small businesses will close. Because of a footnote. Because Obama is going to extraordinary measures to raise taxes to pay for his political agenda.

What Obama will say, if anything.
He'll say this doesn't effect the middle class. That only the richest 2% will have to pay it. Unless you happen to own a business with $3.5 million in assets. That's going to account for a lot of businesses in this country.

He'll say that you won't have to worry about it. Unless you happen to work for one of those small businesses.

He'll say this is not a new tax. He is merely allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. Which is just a horse shit lie.

George Steinbrenner died this year. His kids are SO lucky.
This is kind of an extreme example, but an excellent one. Steinbrenner a few weeks ago. He's passing on his New York Yankees empire, and his children will not have to pay any estate taxes on it, which is fair, in my opinion. Mr. Steinbrenner already paid taxes on that income. No sense to subject it to taxation once again. Because he died when he did, his sons and daughter saved half a billion dollars in estate taxes.

So in closing, I will apologize to my sons in advance for the tax burden they will inherit, because I don't plan on dying this year. Now if I can just make it to the $3.5 million exemption level, but that's really the fun part.

Tax Day Rant

I won't gripe about paying taxes. Except the Kansas City Earnings Tax. I think reasonable taxes are fine.

For the first time in quite some time, we did the taxes ourselves. By "we did the taxes ourselves," I mean that I did the taxes. Ashley did her share of the tax work by signing the returns and asking "How much are we getting back?" and "Do you think we ought to take it to H & R Block?" repeatedly.

Like every other form of commerce, tax preparation can be done online. We filed electronically this year. My best estimate is that it added about six hours worth of work to the process.

Since we were e-filing, we had to fill in all the information that is included in the W-2s. Got that done. Didn't like it, but I got it done.

Then I had to re-create Form 8823 for Noncash Charitable Donations. Check.

I filled out the Federal returns and filed electronically, only to be rejected because we needed a specific form for a contribution we made to a non-profit organization. No problem. I went back and attached the form, filling out all the necessary information and re-filed. It was rejected again because the specific form needed a supporting form.

The first one was easy enough. I'll just go back and find the 1098-C form and attach it. After a half hour of looking, I came to the realization that Form 1098-C is not available. No problem.

I'll just print everything and add the form and mail it in. Kickin it old school. That's how I roll.

I couldn't access my returns. My password didn't match. Had I forgotten the password? No way. But I decided to reset the password through the website. Except that it didn't recognize my email address.

Now I was in trouble. I gave up. Time for a beer and a couple of hours not looking at taxes. I stepped away.

When I returned to the computer, I decided to try one more time to access my returns on the website. It worked! All I had to do was print the returns, add the Form 8823 and 1098-C and I was golden.

Time to move on to the state returns. Because I worked in Kansas, I had to pay taxes in Kansas and declare a credit for the state of Missouri where I live. The Kansas form took 25 minutes to fill out. The Missouri form is 16 pages.

I finally got it done. I was done.

Then, and only then, did I realize that Missouri won't allow you to e-file if you exceed a certain income. We exceeded it. And I was back to mailing it in. Old school.

OK... now I'm done.

Not so fast.

We live in Kansas City. I realized that I had to file city taxes too. Kansas City takes 1% off the top. No deductions. No credits. Nothing.

I went to the city website and got the necessary form. This was the biggest pain in the butt during the whole ordeal. Why? It's one page. It's one percent. Why's it such a pain?

Each individual number was in its own box. And the tab key didn't move the cursor to the next box. So putting in the income information wasn't "65327." It was 6 (move the mouse) 5 (move the mouse) 3 (move the mouse) 2 (move the mouse) 7 (move the mouse).

And each of the 14 freaking lines on the form was the same way.

So now I'm down to the wire. I just need to address the envelopes and pray that I have some stamps.