As a cap to Complain About Taxes Week, I thought it would be amusing to peruse somebody else’s tax return. There are not very many publicly available ones to choose from, but there is this one from a famous multi-millionaire author.
11 Slightly Interesting Things From the Obamas’ 2009 Tax Return
1. The social security numbers are redacted. The White House provided most of the 1040 and schedules that were filed, but the SSN boxes are blank. I guess there is the potential for political pranks, but seriously, what are the chances of somebody trying to use Barak Obama’s identity to open a new credit card?
2. Both Obamas sent $3 to the presidential election campaign fund. A classy thing to do given that Obama is the only major party candidate in history to turn down money from the fund. Presumably, he won’t use it in 2012 either, so this just helps the other guy.
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As April 15 approaches, some of us experience a short-lived obsession with, and resentment of, taxes. For fairly obvious reasons, those of us who put off 
sending in the old 1040 until the last minute tend to be those who need to accompany our returns with checks made out to the Treasury. Folks entitled to checks going the other way tended to file weeks ago.
Having to fill out lengthy government forms is bad enough. Capping off the process with a savingsectomy is enough to turn anybody into a grumpy Republican. For me, this is like being an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day. I enjoy the company of my temporary compatriots, even though I know it won’t last long.
Pandering to this grumbling constituency this week was The Big Money, which shared a list of the five worst parts of the tax code. The fact that they could come up with only five tells me they are only seasonally grumpy. A year-round resident would have come up with at least ten.
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I have been giving a lot of thought to the federal budget deficit lately. Well, some thought. Not as much thought as I have been giving FiLife’s March Money Madness 16 blog tournament. I’m pretty sure they had 15 likely blogs and threw in BMA just to round out the field and add some humor.
Alas, I digress. As all us good Republicans know, the first step in closing the budget gap should be a massive reduction in government spending. I’d
start with the TSA and agriculture subsidies, but that’s just me.
And we’ve got to cut out these loss-making wars. Next time we invade an oil-rich country we need to actually take the oil. Everybody else will accuse us of going to war to get the stuff anyway, so we might as well cash in.
More digression. Sorry.
A quick glance at the federal spending pie chart will tell you that the bits of the budget that can be cut in the short run are not big enough to eliminate the deficit. (For a further, but somewhat out of date, breakdown that could turn anybody into a libertarian, if not an anarchist, click here.) It breaks my heart to say it, but we need some new taxes. Here are my suggestions.
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Conventional wisdom holds that a mortgage on the house you live in is a special kind of debt, one that, mostly because of favorable tax treatment, is so cheap that you should be in no particular hurry to pay it off.
But there is a popular heresy that opposes this firmly established orthodoxy. It holds that all debt is a bad idea, and paying 3X to the bank so you can save X on your taxes is loopy. Free Money Finance made this case recently. And Dave Ramsey is probably the high priest of this particular sect.
I have an instinctive contempt for orthodoxy and a sympathy for heresies of all kinds. But, alas, this is one of those cases where the conventional wisdom is spot on. Sad and boring, but true.
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March is just around the corner, which means we are entering the heart of tax season. Time to gather those 1099s, fire up the old TurboTax, and wonder how we can possibly pay Uncle Sam less money next time.
So ’tis the season to think about, and write about, schemes and tricks to minimize your tax bill. For example, the AP ran an item the other day discussing the rather unlikely maneuver of teenagers opening Roth IRAs.
It’s an idea with some intuitive appeal. As readers of this blog know, Roths are attractive if you believe that the tax rate paid today is likely to be lower than what will be paid when the money is withdrawn from the IRA. A teenager with a tiny income, and thus a low marginal tax rate, certainly qualifies.
And there is the tremendous emotional appeal of "the magic of compounding" that miracle of mathematics that will drastically increase the IRA balance during the very long journey to retirement. Even with only 5% annual return, after 50 years $1 would grow to $11.46. Imagine how grateful your child will be when they retire and realize the foresight you had in making them save way back in 2010.
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1. The social security numbers are redacted. The White House provided most of the 1040 and schedules that were filed, but the SSN boxes are blank. I guess there is the potential for political pranks, but seriously, what are the chances of somebody trying to use Barak Obama’s identity to open a new credit card?
Government, Taxes | Frank Curmudgeon | 
April 16, 2010 12:59 pm | 
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