There are a couple of different ways that I know of. I’m sure someone with more info will be along in a bit.
One way is if you are self employed, the government might not notice that you aren’t contributing to the tax pool for many years. I have a friend who trims cow hooves, going from farm to farm. It’s just him in the business and his clients usually pay him in cash. He’s under the tax radar for now, but if the feds decided to pick a fight with him, they could demand back taxes to the tune of several thousand dollars.
Another way: you can, to an extent, dictate how much is withdrawn from your bimonthly paycheck for income taxes. If you guess low, then the government will be looking to collect more money from you when it’s time to declare your annual income.
The third way I can think of is if you just screw up your annual income declaration. If you thought you didn’t need to declare that $5000 you won at the local casino, or something along those lines.
And then there’s the mysterious way that bites me and the hubby in the ass every year. Somehow, despite earning comparatively little money between the two of us, we usually end up owing a couple hundred bucks.
More people really should do that. I wouldn’t seriously consider linking my life to someone without at least a basic knowledge of their finances, criminal history etc.
PAYE along with National Insurance Contributions are taken from your pay before you get it.
This way it’s only the self employed who need to file tax returns each year altho’ a smart self employed will pay him/herself a wage and deduct the PAYE/NIC there and then
If my boyfriend were to ASK me about my credit, I would be quite honest. (Not that it hasn’t come up in casual conversation, because it has…his own credit has also come up. I think we both have a pretty fair picture of each other’s credit.)
But if he were to ask me for my freakin’ credit report? How do you explain that? “Honey, I’m thinking of asking you to marry me. But before we go that far I would like to see your credit report.”
I don’t even understand how it’s at all ethical to check someone’s credit report when they are applying for a job, for Pete’s sake. I find that pointless and invasive.
I guess my point is that yes, I would balk if my SO asked to see my credit report. Not because I’m ashamed of what’s on it, but because of the assumption that he couldn’t talk to me about it…and if he did, that he couldn’t trust what I said.
Income tax is deducted from your pay both in Canada and the US. I don’t know what other mandatory deductions there are in the US, but in Canada the Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance are also mandatory deductions from pay. I don’t know how things work overseas, but it sounds like you must have a lot fewer ways of reducing tax (and maybe fewer ways of increasing tax payable) if the majority of people don’t need to file tax returns. How do you guys handle charitable donations in terms of tax consequences? Don’t you have retirement savings plans similar to RRSPs or IRAs?
At least he gets to play music on the job, and it’s a catchy song at that.
But I don’t quite understand the premise. Is it that he can’t get a “good” job because his credit is wrecked, or is he moonlighting as the singing pirate/waiter to pay off his credit card after the hacker ran up the bill?
