Time to pay the piper

Because Tom needs to be around the house most of the day for one of his telephone-heavy projects, we decided it might be a good day to do my taxes. Tom files his estimated taxes quarterly, which is why he is doing mine and not his today.

Fortunately this year my return is pretty simple. All he has to deal with for me is the W-2 and the interest earned at the bank on my CDs and checking account. In past years up here, there were often four or five documents to deal with: W-2 from the library, W-2 from the railroad, income report from the Carmelite Institute for distance learning teaching, income from the books when I was actively marketing them, bank report on interest, whatever. Now all these things did not add up to much in terms of dollars and cents, but it made filing a bit bulky and complicated. This year much less so on the complexity and better on the shekels. That's the way I like it. (Well, Tom does all the work on the filing, so that's the way he likes it, too.)

Of course, Wisconsin is one of over 40 states that have income tax, so he has to generate that report, too. But it is not too bad, since he has already had to figure out all the stuff for the federal. Since unlike most presidential candidates, I don't make enough to be able to profit from various and sundry deductions and nuances, it is pretty much click on standard stuff and total it up.

I know I complain about taxes, and I certainly complain about how some of the tax money is used. But on the whole, I am more than satisfied with my return on the investment. Due to my tax money, someone else gets up on cold days and plows my roads so I can get to work or to fun. Someone else goes out in the hot summer sun and patches the potholes in the roads. Someone else stays up all night keeping watch over my security, someone teaches the kids and takes care of the elderly, someone takes in foster children, someone makes sure the food I eat is safe and the drugs I take won't turn me into Mr. Hyde. Taxes helped make sure that Daddy got the health care he needed in his last months and that Mama got regular support as she cared for him. She has told me time and again that if it had not been for what Medicare helped provide, she thinks it would have killed her. So I am particularly happy that I helped make that possible in 2010, for Mama and Daddy and for countless others like them.

This year I will be getting a little bit back that I had paid in to the State of Wisconsin and the United States of America. Which makes for a nice feeling this time of year, too. Remember way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and McDonald's slogan was "Change back from your dollar"? It feels a little bit like that.

And thanks to Tom for taking care of this for me. The state form made trouble when he came to print it out, but eventually he resolved that and got everything done. He's a treasure.