Tax Talk

I'll just add a few brief comments about our (me and my wife's) personal tax experience this year. Because of a stock sale our gross income increased by 40%, and there was no withholding on that additional amount. We expected to owe substantial federal tax, but it turned out to be a very small amount. If it hadn't been for the stock sale we would probably have had a substantial refund.Also, the larger standard deduction made filing taxes much easier this year. I didn't have to go back through my 2018 financial records looking for property tax payments, auto registration costs, and charitable donations.I like the improved simplicity. Doing the taxes used to be an all day affair, now it takes me only an hour or two. If the Trump tax cuts hadn't included huge breaks for the rich and for corporations that caused a huge increase in the deficit that Trump wants to pay for by cutting programs like Social Security then I would think it a big win.I should add that another reason for our improved tax-filing simplicity is our decreased income. I retired a few years back, cutting our household income by 2/3. I don't collect Social Security yet, and we don't yet have to begin withdrawing from our 401k's or IRA's.--Percy

Property taxes in NH are high so in the past we did better itemizing. Before we paid off the mortgage we did even better itemizing.About Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, I won't guess at the details of how Trump and the Republicans plan to raid these programs to decrease the annual deficit, but my understanding is that that is what they want to do. For example see Senate Republicans Set Sights On Cutting Social Security and Top Republicans are already talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security next.--Percy

Right. Those articles make clear that Trump and the Republicans want to reduce the deficit on the backs of social programs, but they don't say how. I said I wouldn't venture a guess on how to do it, but I suppose a couple possibilities would be legislation taking some of the money, or Trump declaring a national emergency allowing him to rob those funds. Reagan signed a law that raised social security taxes that somehow transferred the increased income into the general fund (Ronald Reagan and The Great Social Security Heist). If it could be done once it could be done again.--Percy