Thank you Internal Revenue Service…

…for reinvesting all my my money into Social Security, National Defense (who is attacking us again?) and Medicare/Medicade that I will most likely never benefit from when I need it later in life.

I  just finished my first pass at doing my taxes this year.  Thus, being a single & childless consultant, working in two states, as a graduate student receiving a stipend and tuition scholarships is not an ideal situation for tax purposes I discovered.  As the figure above shows, 2010 was not the best year for me in terms of my tax return (I have removed specific numbers since its none of your business).  Yes, I could have payed taxes as I go given that I’m a MISC-1099 consultant for 50% of my income; however, the fact that UB screwed me over in terms of its billing/payment cycles did not help, nor did the fact that Adecco decided to switch to a different company midyear and take out less taxes than required for my W-2.

In any event, paying taxes are lame (which is not the same as ‘not necessary’) and a better system should be devised or I should have become a tax attorney.  For example, I’m a human factors consultant, for which having a Ph.D. in the field significantly helps me to find work and succeed.  However, I’m not allowed to write off my educational expenses as a business expense (am i?), which would save me tons* of money (*if it was in coins).

So i’m abandoning my 2011 new year’s resolution to adopt a new one that is to avoid having to pay extra taxes in 2012 (e.g., do better at paying as I go, getting proper deductions taken out, and itemizing business expenses).  My old resolution was to give up alcohol; so thank you I.R.S., you have just knocked one more individual off the wagon.

Safe for another 365 days.

Paid my taxes today.  That’s right, Paid.  I wish to speak no more of this matter.