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I was deeply resentful of the school system in the USA by age 16. The only thing you ever heard, by word of mouth, was that taxes were paid yearly in April. I h

I was deeply resentful of the school system in the USA by age 16. The only thing you ever heard, by word of mouth, was that taxes were paid yearly in April. I had the impression that if the stupid government is teaching me, they have an obligation/responsibility to see to it that I know something to basic as what I will have to do to avoid extreme penalization. After all, they went to the trouble of telling me to use condoms and not do drugs, shouldn't they cover things that will cause terrible harm to my life if it only takes a few minutes to teach? By time I dutifully did my taxes in April when I turned 17, the IRS said that I owed them over $10,000 in penalties for not paying "quarterly taxes" on time - something I'd never heard of in my life. This was a huge sum for a 17 year old to try to come up with in the late 1990s, and ultimately the only way out was to fraudulently use a college loan to pay them - otherwise they would stalk me day and night with threatening letters and sanctions So that's the story of why I'm not a patriot but an enemy of the state, they burned me before I even had the chance to reach adulthood.

recursive 6y ago
This story resonates a bit with me. Some years ago, I did some freelance work. I made a good faith effort to do all the tax paperwork. In my naive zeal, I fucked up the forms, and somehow reported the same income twice. What they were asking me to pay was basically the profit I made on the project after expenses. I think I spent 80 hour assembling materials and corresponding with the IRS to try to explain what had happened. Every time it seemed like I was about to get through to a real human who could understand, I was starting all over. I did go to a professional when I was about halfway through the saga. They did not really know what to do. They just wrote another one of the same kinds of letters that I had been writing. Maybe the extra tax jargon in it helped. I don't know. Ultimately I only had to pay a small fraction of what they were asking, but it left me with a phobia of taxes. The rules appeared to be arbitrary and unknowable (to me) and yet I was still responsible for complying.
- silverpepsi 6y ago
  I had the same problem in the past 18 months even with my accountant writing letters to support me the whole way. Only, my mistake was making a single monthly tax deposit in 2019 marked Q2 instead of Q3. irs threatening to lock all my bank accounts (oh how I would love to get stuck overseas with no friends or family where I am and lose all access to money). Exorbitant penalties, and I can easily get them on the phone - only the person I spoke with had an IQ so low they replied to everything I said as if they thought I was mentally handicapped. The phone call was beyond worthless.

recursive 6y ago

This story resonates a bit with me. Some years ago, I did some freelance work. I made a good faith effort to do all the tax paperwork. In my naive zeal, I fucked up the forms, and somehow reported the same income twice. What they were asking me to pay was basically the profit I made on the project after expenses. I think I spent 80 hour assembling materials and corresponding with the IRS to try to explain what had happened. Every time it seemed like I was about to get through to a real human who could understand, I was starting all over. I did go to a professional when I was about halfway through the saga. They did not really know what to do. They just wrote another one of the same kinds of letters that I had been writing. Maybe the extra tax jargon in it helped. I don't know. Ultimately I only had to pay a small fraction of what they were asking, but it left me with a phobia of taxes. The rules appeared to be arbitrary and unknowable (to me) and yet I was still responsible for complying.

silverpepsi 6y ago
I had the same problem in the past 18 months even with my accountant writing letters to support me the whole way. Only, my mistake was making a single monthly tax deposit in 2019 marked Q2 instead of Q3. irs threatening to lock all my bank accounts (oh how I would love to get stuck overseas with no friends or family where I am and lose all access to money). Exorbitant penalties, and I can easily get them on the phone - only the person I spoke with had an IQ so low they replied to everything I said as if they thought I was mentally handicapped. The phone call was beyond worthless.