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Taxes Galore 2/1/2012 12:23:45 PM
Taxes Galore
In this world, there really is no escaping, death and taxes.
Let’s talk about death first. Well, it’s plain and simple; someone had forgotten how to breathe. Someone in this world was enjoying life, took advantage of what this world offered then one day, she found out that she had arrived into another world not of her own choosing. I was talking with a friend of mine and she said that she believed in a heaven. She was in her sixties and suffering from minor irritations such as colds and pains. She exercised, twisting her body or stretched her legs. But we got into a topic about death. She said that she had a friend who just died. This friend was an old lady, now and although she deserved to die, it was not yet her time to say goodbye to this world. She was not breathing anymore and a family member was frantically trying to resuscitate her. Lo and behold, she revived but was mad at her relatives for reviving her. She said that she was already in a place that was beautiful, a garden-like setting with flowers and trees and peace. She lived a few more years when on an occasion an angel told her that she will die that night. She did die that night and all was well. No feelings of missed goodbyes or loss. I think that her relatives felt that they would not make the same mistake of reviving her again. And that was why my friend believed in a heaven; someone she knew had passed away, came back and bless her soul, gone eternally into the next world.
Paying taxes was another item we cannot ignore. Ignore it and you would be in deep trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS. Many times, you will have naysayers who would spouse the concept of not paying taxes. They would promise this or that; and say this or that but nothing went to fruition. They got into deep trouble with the IRS that they ended up on a wanted list and hounded by the tax police and worse, ended up in jail. There were also the tax cheats; those people with money trying to cover up their untold wealth by keeping their kitty in tax havens such as the Cayman Island. (Before, Switzerland and the Isle of Man were good tax havens.) I learned from a Public Television Documentary that an investment firm devised such a plan. Rich investors would invest in their plan and voila, no more taxes. But the IRS was being ingenious nowadays. They demanded Swiss Banks, for one, to declare who this tax cheats were. Switzerland did have a policy not to reveal their depositor and it was against Swiss law to do so. But because of globalization, because those Swiss Banks were also doing business in the United States, they were pressured by the United States to reveal those who made deposits in Swiss Banks to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
I happened to roughly calculate the taxes I owed. It’s has been many, many years now that I paid my taxes and it showed in the report I get from Social Security. For some years, it had been rising. But about three to four years ago, I started to pay less tax because my income had gone down. (Remember the recession?) But nonetheless, I paid it religiously. Never mind my paying less or more. It was my contribution to society so that the society I am in will thrive. I know that there is corruption in this country. But overall, the bureaucracy is generally honest, that was why paying taxes was not really a very taxing idea.
My taxes are not done yet. I am still waiting for some documents to arrive. Their deadline is January 31, so there is still time. So be well and don’t forget to pay your taxes. I know what I’m getting or paying. But I ain’t telling you.
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