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drunkoffthestarsThis entry was going to be called MONIES HOW DO THEY WORK but then my laptop decided to not boot and I about had a heart attack. It would go like it was going to load the BIOS, and just. Hang. Granted, I didn't just let it sit there for a long time, but I was busy FREAKING OUT. I took almost everything apart, and tried again and no dice. So I went to bed and googled furiously.
This morning, the BIOS decided to behave itself, but it was cranking at me about the amount of memory having changed and still wouldn't boot windows. /o\ But this morning's googling yielded excellent results about resetting the BIOS (typically needed because someone set a BIOS password and then forgot what it was). To do so, you just need to pull the all power including the inner battery (the one that looks like a watch battery) for 5 minutes, and VOILA. BIOS loaded, windows booted, including my hibernation (hibernated?) session, THERE WAS GREAT REJOICING.
The thing I was going to write about was the part where I was looking up 2011/2012 tax brackets because at long last, I am theoretically making enough money to put me above the 15% tax bracket next year. \o/
I have the option of reducing my taxable income in a few ways: Flex spending, 403b retirement, 457b retirement. With the flex money, I've already set it up to pull out enough to cover my vision and dental premiums plus a little extra for buying new glasses and for helping with the dental bills I'm assuming I will have once I visit them again because I am terrible at taking care of my teeth and love sugar. It is also only good for one year so it disappears if I don't use it, so I don't want to pull too much out that way because it will just go POOF at the end of the fiscal year in July. The other two are similar retirement accounts I can contribute to (up to ~$16,000 EACH holy shit but there is no way I can afford that much on even ONE, that would put me BELOW what I was getting as a grad student annually). So basically I was trying to decide how much to pull out every month to a) fulfill my grandfather's 10% savings rule and b) put me back in the 15% tax bracket (and that is how rich people get that way. they make a lot of money and work the system).
Gross side fact: Did you know that income from investments (ie dividends and profits made off of stocks/mutal funds/etc) are only taxed at 15% if you've held the investment for more than a year, no matter how much money you make annually or how much money you have? That's what they're talking about when they talk about long term capital gains tax. Fucking gross. Short term is at the usual income tax rate, but srsly. The fuck is that shit. No wonder America doesn't MAKE anything anymore and just fucks around in the financial markets until they collapse the entire world. Fucking everything is set up with massive incentives to play the market instead of actually doing anything productive with your money.
And irritatingly enough, I'm not eligible for the Optional Retirement Someshit which is the self-directed investment-type of retirement I'm used to getting and in which you are typically 'vested' (ie own the money) either immediately or after a single year. Instead, I'm stuck with the Teacher Retirement something something with is called a defined pension something something. And yeah, 90% of the time I'm super-supportive of people offering the defined pension type because it puts the onus of making and maintaining investments on people who (are supposed to) actually know what the fuck they are doing and gives people money when they retire. However, at UT I'm not vested until 5 years in, so for me, it makes no fucking sense because I don't really see myself staying here for 5 years. I'm 50% sure I can pull out my 'contributions' (I'm required to contribute ~6% of my salary, which is fine, I support minimum required retirement contributions, because otherwise no one does it) if I leave before 5 years, but I don't get the matching contribution from the University. I basically lose out on an extra 6% of my annual salary. Which fucking sucks. I have faith that I will eventually have enough money to retire comfortably, if not the lap of luxury, but that is a not insignificant chunk of change I am missing out on.
Anyway, the point of this digression is that while I was looking all this shit up, I was also doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations about how much various people at various income levels pay in taxes and what incomes look like in this country.
Basically, the median income in the USA as of 2010 according to Wikipedia was $49,445. That meas that 50% of the population earned more than that. And 50% of the population earned LESS than that.
In 2010, the Federal tax on a single person earning that much was 25%. Which is not awesome, but not terrible. What kills me though, is the part where 50% of the population earns LESS than that though. So if you earned less than $34,000 in 2010, you were in the 15% tax bracket, which I think is pretty fair. But the tax bracket that grosses me out the MOST is the 10% tax bracket. If you earned up to $8,375 ANNUALLY, you are theoretically taxed at 10% of your income. So a person living BELOW THE POVERTY LINE (~$10,000 for a single person in 2009) is theoretically expected to pay over $800 in federal taxes. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE. And that's on top of the local income taxes and doesn't even mention sales tax and the like.
I am that bougie asshole who still has her parents accountant do her taxes, so I honestly have only the vaguest idea of exactly how all that works, but I really really really hope that people who make that little have SOME way of getting enough deductions and whatnot so they don't actually end up paying taxes. Because that shit is disgusting.
So IDK. The next time some asshole politician is talking about how we need to raise taxes on the poor please verbally punch them in the face. Because people who are MAKING LESS THAN THE INCOME REQUIRED TO BE ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE should not be taxed MORE. How about we tax the few people who are WELL ABOVE the poverty line and use that to build our schools and roads and shit. /commie rant
This morning, the BIOS decided to behave itself, but it was cranking at me about the amount of memory having changed and still wouldn't boot windows. /o\ But this morning's googling yielded excellent results about resetting the BIOS (typically needed because someone set a BIOS password and then forgot what it was). To do so, you just need to pull the all power including the inner battery (the one that looks like a watch battery) for 5 minutes, and VOILA. BIOS loaded, windows booted, including my hibernation (hibernated?) session, THERE WAS GREAT REJOICING.
The thing I was going to write about was the part where I was looking up 2011/2012 tax brackets because at long last, I am theoretically making enough money to put me above the 15% tax bracket next year. \o/
I have the option of reducing my taxable income in a few ways: Flex spending, 403b retirement, 457b retirement. With the flex money, I've already set it up to pull out enough to cover my vision and dental premiums plus a little extra for buying new glasses and for helping with the dental bills I'm assuming I will have once I visit them again because I am terrible at taking care of my teeth and love sugar. It is also only good for one year so it disappears if I don't use it, so I don't want to pull too much out that way because it will just go POOF at the end of the fiscal year in July. The other two are similar retirement accounts I can contribute to (up to ~$16,000 EACH holy shit but there is no way I can afford that much on even ONE, that would put me BELOW what I was getting as a grad student annually). So basically I was trying to decide how much to pull out every month to a) fulfill my grandfather's 10% savings rule and b) put me back in the 15% tax bracket (and that is how rich people get that way. they make a lot of money and work the system).
Gross side fact: Did you know that income from investments (ie dividends and profits made off of stocks/mutal funds/etc) are only taxed at 15% if you've held the investment for more than a year, no matter how much money you make annually or how much money you have? That's what they're talking about when they talk about long term capital gains tax. Fucking gross. Short term is at the usual income tax rate, but srsly. The fuck is that shit. No wonder America doesn't MAKE anything anymore and just fucks around in the financial markets until they collapse the entire world. Fucking everything is set up with massive incentives to play the market instead of actually doing anything productive with your money.
And irritatingly enough, I'm not eligible for the Optional Retirement Someshit which is the self-directed investment-type of retirement I'm used to getting and in which you are typically 'vested' (ie own the money) either immediately or after a single year. Instead, I'm stuck with the Teacher Retirement something something with is called a defined pension something something. And yeah, 90% of the time I'm super-supportive of people offering the defined pension type because it puts the onus of making and maintaining investments on people who (are supposed to) actually know what the fuck they are doing and gives people money when they retire. However, at UT I'm not vested until 5 years in, so for me, it makes no fucking sense because I don't really see myself staying here for 5 years. I'm 50% sure I can pull out my 'contributions' (I'm required to contribute ~6% of my salary, which is fine, I support minimum required retirement contributions, because otherwise no one does it) if I leave before 5 years, but I don't get the matching contribution from the University. I basically lose out on an extra 6% of my annual salary. Which fucking sucks. I have faith that I will eventually have enough money to retire comfortably, if not the lap of luxury, but that is a not insignificant chunk of change I am missing out on.
Anyway, the point of this digression is that while I was looking all this shit up, I was also doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations about how much various people at various income levels pay in taxes and what incomes look like in this country.
Basically, the median income in the USA as of 2010 according to Wikipedia was $49,445. That meas that 50% of the population earned more than that. And 50% of the population earned LESS than that.
In 2010, the Federal tax on a single person earning that much was 25%. Which is not awesome, but not terrible. What kills me though, is the part where 50% of the population earns LESS than that though. So if you earned less than $34,000 in 2010, you were in the 15% tax bracket, which I think is pretty fair. But the tax bracket that grosses me out the MOST is the 10% tax bracket. If you earned up to $8,375 ANNUALLY, you are theoretically taxed at 10% of your income. So a person living BELOW THE POVERTY LINE (~$10,000 for a single person in 2009) is theoretically expected to pay over $800 in federal taxes. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE. And that's on top of the local income taxes and doesn't even mention sales tax and the like.
I am that bougie asshole who still has her parents accountant do her taxes, so I honestly have only the vaguest idea of exactly how all that works, but I really really really hope that people who make that little have SOME way of getting enough deductions and whatnot so they don't actually end up paying taxes. Because that shit is disgusting.
So IDK. The next time some asshole politician is talking about how we need to raise taxes on the poor please verbally punch them in the face. Because people who are MAKING LESS THAN THE INCOME REQUIRED TO BE ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE should not be taxed MORE. How about we tax the few people who are WELL ABOVE the poverty line and use that to build our schools and roads and shit. /commie rant
no subject
Date: 2011-11-11 03:18 am (UTC)As someone who made less than 10K last year: I got all of that money back as a refund. It was annoying that it was withheld, but I did get it back. Not sure if this hold true for everyone, but it's been the case for several of my tax returns where I was under the tax minimum. I think you don't even have to file under a certain amount, but if you got money withheld that's the only way to get it back.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-11 05:01 pm (UTC)