Taxes: Where is my money going?

Or: it goes the same place the church collection plate moolah goes - into coffee & donuts.

"Dear Property Owner,

In recent years, Arlington County has been increasing its attention to pedestrian issues, to help make walking safer and more pleasant.....Property owners in zoning categories which include the one for this property are responsible for constructing, improving, replacing or enlarging sidewalks, driveways, alleys, sanitary or storm facilities, curbs and gutters in the public easement or the right-of-way adjacent to their property"

First of all, why the hell do we pay property taxes if the county is not going to fix sidewalks etc..

the letter then goes on to outline options. they've assessed the necessary work and it will cost 22,000 dollars!! and you can
1) hire a contractor to do the job
2) use the Arlington county contractor (for a 500 dollar rebate - see below)
3) ignore options 1 & 2 and they will take a lien against your house to have the work done

oh yeah, the letter said you have 30 days to deal with this. Upon checking the Arlington county website I found out that 2 years ago they passed this regulation that says the county is only responsible for up to 500 dollars of work and that beyond that they can hit up the residents if they choose. So, remind me again why we pay taxes.

(sorry)

don't answer if that's too personal, though.

i wonder if this bonus that you get pushes you into a higher bracket, both when the bonus is paid and when you do yer tax returns -- that may explain why you still owe money at the end of the year ('cause if you under-withhold, you probably shouldn't owe anything and may be due for a refund).

that's the only explanation that i can think of, based on what you've said so far.

It I'm being pushed into a higher bracket via bonuses, wouldn't the huge luxury/estate tax type withholding on the bonus (it's around 50%) more than pay for the higher percentage?

Ally, she's actually a friend of mine so where did you get this idea? I got sent to interview her a few years ago for the cover of Edgy Style Mag and we hit it off, which doesn't happen much for me. She works her ass off most of the time (on music I don't like apart from her voice, yet she has interesting taste in just about everything else) but is the type of person who takes care to remember birthdays and such, and she's fucking funny too.

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=109876,00.html#astronauts_2003

Ummm...This is me, actually. How do I stop myself eventually going up into a higher tax bracket?

otherwise, yes, save up a bunch of that money and give it to charity before the end of the tax year. Ned is not a registered charity.

Can you expand on this? Taxes are so much simpler in the UK.

actually, it's because bonuses do not fall into the same income category as your straight wage. it's to prevent all companies from paying employees minimum wage and then presenting bonuses as your real wage at one time, an obvious tax benefit.

Taxes are so much simpler in the UK.
yes but you also have to support all that evil socialized medicine over there!

@d@m go here:

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96196,00.html

gather all your household paystubs for the year, plug stuff in. there is some estimating you will have to do. the end figure that it gives you should be more or less correct, but you'll have to do a lot of estimating on your overtime.

there are probably other calculators for dealing with this as well.