At the tax office this week, I met my fair share of awesome clients. Sweet and genuine, and really working hard to support their families. I've also met those that make me sit there, blinking at them, wondering how the hell they function as adults.
Let's take a look at a couple of these cases:
Case A) - Client comes in with only unemployment. Wants to know why they don't have any of that earned income credit. EARNED income people! Doesn't matter what your views of earned income are, the IRS makes the rules here. Earned income is income you...you know...earned, while working. Working.
Case B) - Client comes in and asks if she has to report her minor son's disability payments. I tell her no, any money she receives for her child she does not report. She asks why, so I tell her it's just not reported. Neither is child support. She asks if he is still on disability when he turns 18 if he will have to report it. I tell her yes, if he has any additional income, he will file the disability as well. Then she asks if he can claim it as an adult, why can't she claim it as his adult guardian. I ask her, rather incredulously, why she would WANT to claim it? She says because she understands how the earned income credit works, and she wants to report more income to receive more credit. Obviously she doesn't know how that works. My explanation to her? See case A above. EARNED income. Ugh.
Both of those clients then proceeded to tell me they earned cash money for babysitting, doing hair, housekeeping, etc. And of course, neither of them had any proof of that income. :(
People! Why do you feel like the government *owes* you something? The EITC is a reward for those who are out there in the work force, trying to support their family. I'm not going to get into a political debate about the economy, or the unemployment rate, or anything else. Yes, it sucks. But it is what it is. Defrauding the IRS to try and receive that EITC isn't going to help things. Last year alone, there was $28.5 billion dollars (BILLION DOLLARS) of tax fraud. No, all of that didn't involve the EITC, but a large majority did. What do you think the government is going to do if they can't get a handle on that fraud? They're going to to cut the EITC all together. To me, that would suck even more.
Ok. Rant over. On a lighter note, I did meet a lovely couple who homeschool their kiddos. Why is this note worthy? When he handed me his W2, I noticed he worked for the local school board (the same county school system my boys would be in if they were in public school). I asked if he was a teacher, and he ashamedly said yes. We laughed and I asked why he looked so sheepish about that. He says he's always been uncomfortable telling people he's a public school teacher AND a homeschooling parent. Lol. We laughed a little more, and chatted a bit about the benefits of being a homeschool family. As soon as he left, I texted the hubs and told him I feel even more validated in our choice to keep the boys out of the school system. :D
Gosh. I went on and on about the tax office, didn't I? Sorry...
At home, things went well. At least I think they did. The house was standing each night when I got home. The boys looked and smelled clean. They weren't telling me they were hungry. Things were good. ;)
Bailey enjoyed his 3rd cake decorating class last week, and is sad that this Tuesday is the last class. The first class they decorated cookies. The second week they decorated a single layer cake (see that picture in the previous post). This past week they decorated cupcakes.
 |
| They worked with different decorating tips... :) |
This week will hopefully go smoothly. I don't have anything planned yet. That's the great thing about the programs and websites we use though...I don't really have to plan anything. We have known that Bailey was going to take another Time4Writing course, but we were initially going to wait until spring. I may look into setting that up now. Braeden could even use a little online writing tutoring. They have elementary level courses, and it would be nice if they both had something to work on that wasn't accountable to me or their dad.
Ok. I'm off to hang with my guys. My most favorite thing to do. The hubs was even more awesome than normal this week, and got a great start on Mount Laundry for me. Without quite so much to do today, maybe I will finally put away those Christmas decorations I was supposed to put away last week...and didn't.
Maybe.
:D
No comments:
Post a Comment