[QUOTE=control-z]
What is filing taxes like in the UK?
[/QUOTE]
Dunno. My employer does it all for me - which is the norm for employed (as opposed to self-employed) folks.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Dunno. My employer does it all for me - which is the norm for employed (as opposed to self-employed) folks.
[/QUOTE]
In the U.S., employers generally withhold our tax money and pay it to the state and federal governments on our behalf. But many (perhaps most) employees end up having more withheld than they owe, and therefore get refunds. We still have to turn in our tax forms on April 15. Do you not have to file anything, or do anything to ensure that the amount withheld by your employer was correct, and get the necessary adjustment?
I think the complexity the OP complains about is partly due to our system of deductions. A lot of things can be deducted from our taxable income, but there are various rules for each type of deduction. For instance, with medical expenses, something which you presumably don’t have to worry about much–they can be deducted, but only the part greater than 7.5% of your income. ( :rolleyes: - like the first 7.5% is any less expensive than the next 7.5%.). On the other hand, there’s a standard deduction for people who don’t have much specific to itemize.
We itemized ours this year and it was the first time we were able to beat the standard deduction.
[QUOTE=Amp]
And what’s the deal with airline food?
[/QUOTE]
Food? What about the seats? And the leg room? And the stewardesses with the cattle prods? And the lines at the airports? And the cavity searches? And the “no liquids”? and the $5 shitty forced air headphones?
[QUOTE=control-z]
-Power lines. Right now tree trimmers are out mauling the hell out of any tree near a power line, they do this every year. Why not just bury the lines and then we wouldn’t have power outages every windy day and you wouldn’t have to keep paying contracters to cut up the trees every year? I know they ain’t cheap.
[/QUOTE]
Buried lines are more expensive to install, but all lines will eventually be put underground. (Rule 20A)
Meantime, in most cities, new construction is required to have buried utility lines. Older lines are being put underground at the rate of a given number of miles per year. They’ll get there. Slowly.
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
In the U.S., employers generally withhold our tax money and pay it to the state and federal governments on our behalf. But many (perhaps most) employees end up having more withheld than they owe, and therefore get refunds. We still have to turn in our tax forms on April 15. Do you not have to file anything, or do anything to ensure that the amount withheld by your employer was correct, and get the necessary adjustment?
[/QUOTE]
Nope - it’s all done for me. I’m informed of all the calculations on my pay slips and a couple of year-end summaries (one for my salary and one for my company vehicle)… I’ve never found them to be incorrect
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Naw, all those fuckers do is shit and eat cash right out of your wallet.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Nope - it’s all done for me. I’m informed of all the calculations on my pay slips and a couple of year-end summaries (one for my salary and one for my company vehicle)… I’ve never found them to be incorrect
[/QUOTE]
Good lord, there’d be a general uprising if we were deprived of the annual illusion of having some control over our tax payment…
[QUOTE=Colophon]
… an argument which would hold more water were public transport less comprehensively shit.
[/QUOTE]
Have you ever been to the US? You’re taking the piss, right?
Oh, and filling out the 1040 is really easy if you can follow instructions. The North Carolina one on the other hand …
[QUOTE=jayjay]
Good lord, there’d be a general uprising if we were deprived of the annual illusion of having some control over our tax payment…
[/QUOTE]
You think so? Not by me, I hate doing my goddamn taxes.
[QUOTE=Cluricaun]
You think so? Not by me, I hate doing my goddamn taxes.
[/QUOTE]
I do think so. You’d have every Libertarian, libertarian, curmudgeon, militiaman, evangelical and all of those “distrust government completely” types crying bloody murder.
[QUOTE=jayjay]
Good lord, there’d be a general uprising if we were deprived of the annual illusion of having some control over our tax payment…
[/QUOTE]
I thing a general uprising* would happen here if someone told us we’d have to start filling in forms and calculating stuff.
General uprisings here consist of murmuring, sighing, flustered impotent letters* to irrelevant local newspapers, angry complaints to third parties completely unrelated to (and not responsible for) the problem, then grudging minimal compliance hampered by incompetence and confusion.
**The standard opening for such letters is 'Why oh why…"
The British version of Network:
“We’re moderately irked and we’re not going to take it anymore (if that’s all right with you).”
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Naw, all those fuckers do is shit and eat cash right out of your wallet.
I do want the government to do something about the crying children problem, though. Every fucking public place I go, somebody has a crying child. In the airport, at the restaurant, in the bookstore, everywhere. If I were in charge, crying babies would be made a criminal offense punishable by no less than 12 years in prison. Why won’t someone think of the children?
Stranger
[/QUOTE]
Before they do that, I’d like to see some noise laws actually enforced. most people listen to music in their cars, most people even turn it up loud when a song they like is playing…but people that drive around with the stereo blaring need to be fined, and fined heavily. Especially when I can hear the bass from a half mile away. Its obnoxious, its rude and it makes me want to Hulk out and smash the vehicle being driven.
[QUOTE=Jolly Roger]
Before they do that, I’d like to see some noise laws actually enforced. most people listen to music in their cars, most people even turn it up loud when a song they like is playing…but people that drive around with the stereo blaring need to be fined, and fined heavily. Especially when I can hear the bass from a half mile away. Its obnoxious, its rude and it makes me want to Hulk out and smash the vehicle being driven.
[/QUOTE]
You know the most obnoxious thing about it. They do it with the windows open. In the rain and snow, in the depths of winter. No reason to have the windows open, except so that the people on the side of the road can hear their moronic shitty music.
I don’t really care if anyone likes loud, shitty music, but it annoys me no end if they make a special effort to inflict it on me. Fuckwits.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
You know the most obnoxious thing about it. They do it with the windows open. In the rain and snow, in the depths of winter. No reason to have the windows open, except so that the people on the side of the road can hear their moronic shitty music.
I don’t really care if anyone likes loud, shitty music, but it annoys me no end if they make a special effort to inflict it on me. Fuckwits.
[/QUOTE]
its no picnic in the summer either. a few years ago, after yet another fucktastically shitty day at work in new jersey (I was a recruiter then, so thats levels of magnitude worse than an average fucktastically shitty day) I was leaving work in my jeep with the top down. i got stuck in an underpass because of this one superlong red light…next to car with full of wannabe rapper white boys blasting whatever horrible, bass filled idiocy rap music was popular at the time. It was blazing hot and the sound echoed in the underpass. I swear if I had an M16 right then i’d have shot all of them. It gave me the worst headache and it made me so unreasonably angry I had to pull over halfway home to calm myself down.
People who do that should be forbidden from having car stereos and probably driving in general. I don’t care if they were playing my favorite song in the world, its asinine to blare it like that. Why people do it I don’t know…a cry for attention? If so why is it never anything that requires taste that they play?
[QUOTE=Jolly Roger]
Before they do that, I’d like to see some noise laws actually enforced. most people listen to music in their cars, most people even turn it up loud when a song they like is playing…but people that drive around with the stereo blaring need to be fined, and fined heavily. Especially when I can hear the bass from a half mile away. Its obnoxious, its rude and it makes me want to Hulk out and smash the vehicle being driven.
[/QUOTE]
I agree that is annoying (especially their choice of music…it’s never Led Zep or Tool or anything even remotely good, it’s always the latest garbage rap shit) but how do you decide when to enforce that law? What if you are listening to music at what you consider to be a perfectly acceptable level but someone else thinks it’s too loud?
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
I do want the government to do something about the crying children problem, though. Every fucking public place I go, somebody has a crying child. In the airport, at the restaurant, in the bookstore, everywhere. If I were in charge, crying babies would be made a criminal offense punishable by no less than 12 years in prison. Why won’t someone think of the children?
[/QUOTE]
I’m with you. When I’m president of Earth, abortion will not only be legal, it will be mandatory.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I thing a general uprising* would happen here if someone told us we’d have to start filling in forms and calculating stuff.
General uprisings here consist of murmuring, sighing, flustered impotent letters* to irrelevant local newspapers, angry complaints to third parties completely unrelated to (and not responsible for) the problem, then grudging minimal compliance hampered by incompetence and confusion.
**The standard opening for such letters is 'Why oh why…"
[/QUOTE]
Where the hell is the Kingdom of Butter? Your responses seem rather location specific, and I think it is the UK, but I can’t be sure.
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké]
Where the hell is the Kingdom of Butter? Your responses seem rather location specific, and I think it is the UK, but I can’t be sure.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, the UK (previous page made that clear, I thought, sorry).
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké]
Where the hell is the Kingdom of Butter? Your responses seem rather location specific, and I think it is the UK, but I can’t be sure.
[/QUOTE]
Mangetout is, indeed, a UK Doper. You can tell because he drives on the wrong side of the information superhighway.*
*stopping abruptly every couple of gigabytes to take a photo of an abandoned data glove…
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké]
Where the hell is the Kingdom of Butter? Your responses seem rather location specific, and I think it is the UK, but I can’t be sure.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a magical place, next to the Land of Lollipops and the Shire of Syrup. 