The Center of the Anomaly

I’m a procrastinator – have been all my life.  It’s a serious character flaw, I know.  I’ll work on it later.  Anyway, I finally got around to filing my Federal Tax Return.  Like last year I Turbo-Taxified it and like last year I’ll get a largish refund of $2,600 and change.  Obviously, this is not good because they’re with-holding waaaayyyyy too much every pay period.  I will call HR Monday and get them to adjust this, which means bing!another $216 bucks going into my savings account each month instead of the IRS’s.  I’m pretty sure I said I was going to do this last year too, though.  Oh well.  I will do it this time. 

I’m a fairly new homeowner so I’m not used to itemizing deductions – before I had few of them and never enough to go beyond the basic exemptions.  Back then the withholding was about right – I was used to actually paying a couple hundred at the end of it all.  I guess, too that I was a bit nervous about changing the Status Quo as far as with-holdings go.  Some years ago I received a notification out of the blue from the IRS about a return I had filed some years before that.  It seems that I had not properly reported all my earnings for the year in question.  This was a Very Serious Matter as I owed the IRS Back Taxes with Interests and Penalties.  The letter further detailed that Very Dire Things awaited me should I Fail To Comply.  More Penalties and Interests were the very least of them.  Oh yes – it was quite intimidating.  I Complied with Alacrity in filling out and submitting the proper form along with the check (NOT stapled to the form) for the full amount.  It was a couple hundred bucks I think.  The total Penalties and Interests were more than the original amount owed as I recall.  This was enough to appease the Tax Gods as I’ve never heard anything further about it.

I hope I’ve pleased the Tax Gods for another year, and I’m sure the Federal Government has made very wise use of the $216 interest-free loans I’ve been giving them for the last 15 months.