Hey! Gimme my money back!
Mar. 4th, 2009 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhia_starsongSo. My mom finally badgered me into doing my taxes this afternoon. I swear it gets more complicated every year, but this year, I was finally vindicated in my financial filing system.
There's this thing on the state form called the Consumer Use Tax, and it's intended to apply state sales tax to most things you buy on-line and aren't charged state tax for. Stuff like books, computers and other electronics, that sort of thing. What's noticeably missing from the list is DVDs. Yeah. It's got audio and video tapes, and CDs, but not DVDs. Good thing, too, since that's most of what I buy.
And here's the awesome thing: it pays not to keep up with your receipts. Because then, all you do is go, 'Hmm, yep, total interwebs purchases in these categories is less than $1000, and I definitely don't make more than $40-something thousand a year in taxable income; aha! Two dollars it is.'
That's right, I'm paying $2 in Consumer Use Tax. My mom, who is extremely anal about stuff like taxes and receipt-keeping, had originally carefully worked out that she owed $57, but then realised that my way made it only $39. And then she went back to last year's return and realised she'd overpaid by $90. (Here I must confess that until this year, I didn't actually bother finding out what this thing was, so I just assumed it was zero, which isn't far off.)
So, I may have to end up paying both the Feds and the state, but at least I got to say 'I told you so'.
There's this thing on the state form called the Consumer Use Tax, and it's intended to apply state sales tax to most things you buy on-line and aren't charged state tax for. Stuff like books, computers and other electronics, that sort of thing. What's noticeably missing from the list is DVDs. Yeah. It's got audio and video tapes, and CDs, but not DVDs. Good thing, too, since that's most of what I buy.
And here's the awesome thing: it pays not to keep up with your receipts. Because then, all you do is go, 'Hmm, yep, total interwebs purchases in these categories is less than $1000, and I definitely don't make more than $40-something thousand a year in taxable income; aha! Two dollars it is.'
That's right, I'm paying $2 in Consumer Use Tax. My mom, who is extremely anal about stuff like taxes and receipt-keeping, had originally carefully worked out that she owed $57, but then realised that my way made it only $39. And then she went back to last year's return and realised she'd overpaid by $90. (Here I must confess that until this year, I didn't actually bother finding out what this thing was, so I just assumed it was zero, which isn't far off.)
So, I may have to end up paying both the Feds and the state, but at least I got to say 'I told you so'.