Yeahhh, I’m the Tax Mannnn… ♫♪

Oh, Yay. Let me, like the many countless others on the social networking sites and twitter, state the things I shall plan/do with all this mega money I shall get back on taxes. Hmm. Money, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I am one of an apparent couple of people who are not getting anything back on taxes. The average person I’ve spoke with this year is receiving a refund of between $6000 to $12000. The lower end of this was a person of lower-to-poverty level, and the higher end was a low-to-mid bracket person (>$50K) who happened to make the smart move of buying their first house last year. Bammo – an automatic $8 grand in your pocket. This doesn’t include all the extras…

I make less than a teacher’s salary. So no, I am not up there in the higher tax bracket. I do not own anything. I do not claim unnecessary exemptions throughout the year to get more money on my paycheck. Furthermore, I pay out as much or more taxes as all of these other people. So what’s the deal? I’ve done comparisons down to the T, and there seems to be no reasonable differences to warrant my refund of zilch.

One guy I know normally has trouble feeding his own family and has health problems that need addressing. Now he’s bragging about his new 42″ plasma television, his-and-her trips to the mall for new wardrobes, and last but not least, joking about accidentally punching in an extra set of 00’s at the ATM machine and opting to stick it in their pocket in lieu of getting upset about it. I feel like punching this person out. At his height and weight, I could justifiably do it.

Facebook is crawling with all the lucky ones’ status updates. Here’s one I woke up to this morning:

• Tax return season! I have my list made of things to catch up on / pay off, as well as some things I have wanted for a very long time, like a laptop.  Tell me all the things you haven’t been able to afford until now… what are your plans and where are you going??

I’ve seen some comments made to this such as paying off (a couple of) credit cards, to buying a laptop, to putting it into cd’s to ‘let it grow’… here’s some extras:

• We got a couch, love seat and new tv. I’m taking a girl’s weekend trip… paid up up the house payments. It felt great to pay some bills up and I’m so excited about my trip…..never been away from home unless I was having a baby, lol.

and how about this one:

• I got a nice amount back, so I went out and got a laptop, which I have always wanted. I got my sweet man an iPod touch for his birthday because he wanted one and I love him (smile) – put some towards bills and will put some away so I have some saved for a change. What a great feeling!

Good God. I guess, no I know – that I’d be excited about my newfound rewards too. The difference in me and these people? I would NEVER broadcast these earthly earnings to either my work or my social networking site. Geez, why would you? I understand being happy about the money, okay even ecstatic – but why would you want people to know? For one I, who as of this very month has been 3 years without a raise in pay at work, would consider it bragging. Plain and simple.

A friend of mine is so right – if you didn’t believe something smells foul in Washington before, you’d better believe it now.

Go ahead, call me a Curmudgeon at Large. But let’s put the shoe on the other foot for a bit, shall we? And see how ‘they’ would feel if the tables were turned….