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Please
include your name, address & apartment number if
you want an item posted.
If you wish, we can post it as annonomous. But, we do need to varify
that you live in Fillmore Gardens.
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by Andrea Albanese
TAXES
I don’t know when this issue will actually roll off
the presses, but right now, its tax time. What a royal pain! First, getting
all those papers together is a major chore for the organizationally challenged
like myself. Then, one must take time out of an already busy schedule
to visit the tax preparer and, very likely, write a check to the government.
Then, as the final insult, you are presented with yet another bill by
the tax preparer. No one is excluded from this process. A former neighbor
of mine, who was on disability, once took a small part-time job before
the holidays to buy her child a nicer gift. (She is actually a close
friend but I didn’t want you to think I ran with a bad crowd.)
Someone with a lot of time on their hands saw fit to report her to the
authorities for this heinous crime. Naturally, her gift went to Uncle
Sam instead; We’re talking less than ten dollars here, but the
government keeps track of these things.
Lately, however, I’ve tried to look at taxes in a new way. Most
of the time, people like us are insignificant peasants in whom the government
has little interest. But, as the ides of April approach, the government
is very interested in you. For example, last time I had my taxes calculated,
I had forgotten to bring along a couple of documents. Well, everything
came to a screeching halt as phone calls were made before business closed
for the day to get the needed information. Wow!…I needed to obtain
my FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS. Is that cool, or what? As if that were not enough,
I was asked about charitable contributions as if I were a great philanthropist.
Like a high-ranking executive with an expense account, I was asked about “professional
expenses.” (Hmmm…sort of reminds me of Ralph Kramden referring
to his wife as a “career girl” followed by her sarcastic
comment that she worked at Krausmeyer’s Bakery where her “career” was “stuffing
jelly into donuts.”) At any rate, suddenly, I was Doris Duke (world’s
richest woman, circa 1928) with money flowing generously in all directions.
I wrote my checks to the tax preparer, the federal government, and the
state government. I left the office filed with a sense of largesse…financially
secure, the world at my fingertips. The feeling lasted until just about
the time I reached my car and found the $150.00 parking ticket and wondered
where I was going to find the money to pay it. Oh well, at least the
car didn’t turn into a pumpkin.
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