Taxes

Today I had to hang out part of the day at my wife's tax office. I'm supposedly getting my truck fixed. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, I held down the fort while she ran some errands in town. A man came in to pick up a tax return that she did yesterday. I knew where completed tax returns were so I quickly retrieved it, excited about getting his money and hoping he paid with cash. If he paid with cash I could have pocketed it and seen if my wife ever caught it. I'm like the auditor. I'm the CEO, CFO, Chairman of the Board, President, Controller, Personell Manager, and now the Auditor. OK back to the story. He received a refund from the federal government but basically owed the same amount to the state government. Now that's odd so I looked at his W-2. He was a victim of our local tire plant shutting down last year, so basically he drew unemployment all year. Unemployment withholds federal tax, but doesn't withhold state tax. So there lies the problem. If you don't pay the state any tax, you can't get any back. He just didn't understand that. He couldn't believe they weren't withholding state taxes. After showing him the W-2 he still didn't believe. I advised him to come back in 30 minutes to visit with my wife. I also advised him to use that 30 minutes to go visit the unemployment office, because if he was still drawing unemployment he would owe the state again next year.

I don't understand this. Do people not look at their checks, whether it be paychecks or unemployment checks? I can tell you where every penny of mine goes. Maybe this is part of our societal problems, we don't understand where our money goes. Now I don't look at mine every month, because I'm salary. Mine doesn't change but one month a year (bonus time), so the deductions are the same every month. I did change some things around in December so I'm ready for the 25th to get here so I can see how it affects my paycheck.

30 minutes later the man came back. I overheard him tell my wife that the unemployment checks didn't have state tax withheld. Duh, didn't I tell you that? Anyway he also paid my wife for it, so I'll have to come up with some new controls for my auditing procedure.