Let's talk about taxes

First of all every year these days I have to write a check (electronically) for the entire amount of my federal income tax obligation. Every time I do I think everybody should have to do it this way instead of looking forward to receiving a refund as if it were a birthday gift. If you had to face the dollar amount and watch it disappear from your bank account, you might take more interest in how much of that money goes to pay for the #fakepresident's million-dollar weekends at Mar a Lago.
       This year there's even more, I live on a relatively fixed income, the largest part of which is a Social Security benefit, a fund I paid into since 1958. Another Republican, Ronald Reagan, took a chunk out of it already when he started taxing Social Security payments to pay for his adventures in the Middle East and South America during the 1980s.
       Then, this year, with the #fakepresident's ballyhooed tax cuts, I was allowed to pay $400 more than I did last year  for just about the same amount of income. We did get a slight increase in the payments this year but it barely covered the withdrawal to cover an increase in the Medicare premium we have to pay. That's right, we old folks get to pay for that "entitlement," as the GOPpers dreogatoraly call it. Specifically, it IS an entitlement; having paid into the fund for 60 years I am entitled to that money.
     Mind you, I am not complaining generally about paying taxes. Despite the efforts of the #fakepresident, this is still a good country to live in and it costs money to make it work. I just want my money to be used effectively, not for caging children, or for golf weekends or to finance a cabinet whose main purpose is to undo a century of progress in this country. If Medicare for all means some of my money goes to pay for an abortion in New York City, or a hip replacement in Helena, that's OK with me. I am sure in the long run as I age and go through one infirmity after another some emerging master of the universe starting out on Wall Street will be paying for my arthritis medicine as well. It's all good.
      I just think if we all physically wrote that check every year for the full amount instead of happily planning what we'll buy with a refund, we might give the people we vote for and how they distribute our money a little more careful examination.
     Now comes the kicker. I mentioned my "relatively" fixed income. Well I do have some other income, about ten percent, that varies from year to year and arrives at unexpected moments, I've written before about how my father would shake his head every time I hit the bottom of my barrel, a check would fall out of the sky and save me. How about this?
     Today April 15, income tax day 2019, I received a royalty check in the mail that was only $100 short of paying my entire tax bill. And we get to vote for a new president next year. You just have to have a little faith.

A SIDE NOTE: As if piling on the lower tax brackets wasn't enough, there's an effort afoot in Congress to make the IRS charge for electronic filing. Chief among the lobbyists for that move are the representatives of the huge online tax preparation company #turbotax. Where it has normally cost the price of maybe two stamps to file a return, electronic filing has been free. Who knows what the IRS might charge at the behest of #turbotax. So, at the end of the #turbotax process is a form to send the company comments about using the application. Here's what I sent in the comments section:
Given Turbotax executives' efforts to change free filing, I have used this product since the days when it was Macintax. I have been generally satisfied with it. However if the IRS begins charging for electronic filing the direct result of your lobbying, I will dump you like yesterday's mashed potatoes and find another provider.
If anybody who reads this uses turbotax, please do the same. You can do it by going to the "file your return" section and click to the end of it.
Congress considers ending free filing -ProPublica