Taxes, thank you notes, and interviews

And maybe a small rant…

Despite the fact that I slept in today, I’ve gotten a remarkable amount of work done.  I got the two thank you notes from yesterday’s interview written and sent out with Geoff to be dropped in the mail.  I had picked up some more stamps on my way home after yesterday’s interview precisely so I wouldn’t have to hunt down a random forever stamp left over from the wedding or mix together a conglomeration of postcard stamps to do the trick.

I got an email about another interview from an interested local college.  We have a telephone interview tomorrow and, if all goes well, an in person interview sometime soon after that.

I started on our taxes today.  This was big because this is the first time that Geoff and I have filed jointly.  I always do his taxes and I often do taxes for friends as well.  Despite the fact that I’m not good at math, I AM good at reading directions and that’s what taxes are about.  Reading directions and figuring out how to work within them.  I actually read up on the changes to tax codes when they’re published each year because I’m that much of a nerd.

Anyway, the last of our tax paperwork came in today so I started working on them.  I’ve never done a joint return before.  Not for me, not for anyone.  My taxes have always been a little tricky as I’ve always got at least one 1099 and some other kind of strange income from my singing.  Throw in a spouse, unemployment income, and I was visiting irs.gov a bunch while I was working.

We’re mostly done and while we don’t owe the obscene amount that we owed last year, we’re still going to owe both the feds and the state.  Does that burn me when GE, DuPont, and Verizon get away with paying nothing while I, someone who has been unemployed for all of 2011, and my husband, who worked for only a small part of 2011, will pay more than all three of those companies combined in both 2010 and 2011 in taxes?

Yes.  Yes, it does.

You know what else burns me?  Mitt Romney.  I didn’t vote for him when he was Governor in our fair Commonwealth, and this comment after his win in Florida last night just underlines why we need tax reform, social reform, healthcare reform (and, no, Romney Care doesn’t count) and NOT Romney in the White House.

If I remember my bible, both Matthew and Mark have quotes about how the poor will always be with us.  This is, Mittens, not an excuse to ignore them but, rather, a charge that we are to take care of them.  To lift them up.  To contribute to their welfare and the social safety net that binds us all.

I’ll probably finish working on our taxes tomorrow and, in the end, we’ll probably end up paying a higher tax rate than Mittens and his friends.  And somewhere Mittens and Friends will be dreaming up ways to, if elected, cut our Unemployment and EBT benefits while slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and other “extraneous spending”.  We, on the other hand, will be sending out cover letters, interviewing, writing thank you notes, and paying our taxes.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like the good citizen in this equation.

~Kelly