McArdle's Mysterious Tax Facts

The mystic McArdle shares an astounding & never before known fact (We bet you didn't know this!): Tax-payers can take more deductions on their W-2 or W-4 forms (Whichever one you fill out when you get a job; it's been so long we can't remember which is which.) & not let the U.S. gummint get an "interest-free loan" from wage-slaves via tax withholding! No shit Megan? When, where & how did you dig up this kernel of secret, if not esoteric knowledge to share w/ the unwashed masses?

We can only figure she knows her readership well, & realizes they are either so ignorant that this is a revelation to them, or they simply enjoy having an overgrown elf condescend to them. Not mutually exclusive conditions, obviously.

Of course, you don't want to be underwithheld either--pay too little in taxes, and you'll trigger the aforementioned interest and penalties. So start out by changing your withholding just a little bit. If you're still getting money back next year, you can raise your deductions a little more, until you have gotten to a point where you will "neither a borrower nor a lender be".

Ay! Does she not know any way one could, we dunno, research tax rates, deductions & so on to calculate (Ooops. Sorry.) just how many deductions to take, rather than this wait-til-next-yr. trial & error approach?

The condescension continues:

Luckily, I can tell you how to effectively replicate the tax refund experience, except in an interest-bearing account. First, go to your bank and open up a new savings account, one that isn't linked to your current checking or savings. Second, go to human resources or payroll and change your withholding. And third, while you're standing in human resources, ask the nice person there for a form to change your direct deposit. Set it up so that a fixed amount from every check goes into that new savings account.  Depending on whether your pay cycle is monthly, bi-monthly, or bi-weekly, that amount should be, respectively, 1/12th, 1/24th, or 1/26th of the amount that you'd like to have at the end of the year.

Or, join the Christmas Club. Next wk., Megs will be informing all how to tie their shoes, instructing on napkin usage, or just being a jerk as usual.

I know, I know--what a pain! But you only have to do it once. And at the end of the year,every year, you'll have a nice big sum in your account. Best of all, it will have been earning interest. A sadly tiny amount of interest, to be sure. But whatever the amount, over a couple of years it will more than repay the hour that you spent setting all this up.

So, better some fucking banker gets your money & profits from it while paying you incredibly small interest? Of course. Bankers might divert some of those profits to wingnut welfare for our heroine; but she knows damn well she'll never get anything from the gov't. Except roads & shit, but none of that counts.