On tax day

Like many (the majority of US Citizens, I hope) I filed my taxes by today's deadline. I'm usually on top of things and file in mid-February to late March. This time around, I filed last week, still before deadline but much later than usual.

Like many, I was really nervous about finding out that I would owe more this year because of the recent tax changes. And, like many, upon completing I was angry, disappointed, and a little sad that we did, in fact, owe much more than usual.

This was even accounting for the increased donations we made in 2018, including donating a car. We had some write offs from our cross country move, and our selling the old house and buying the new. Yet we still owed.

So I asked some accountant colleagues who could only console me with "it's not anything you did wrong; it really is the changes to the tax laws that did you in".

This just reinforces my view (personal opinion) that this is just another, small symptom of how broken our system really is. I understand and willingly pay taxes. I believe in them and appreciate the things that tax money grants us. I can afford to pay them, even when I find I owe more at the time of filing.

But, imagine I wasn't this fortunate? Imagine those who scrape daily to make ends meet, only to find that they still owe much more than they anticipated on tax day. And imagine them being told "it's not anything you did wrong; it really is the changes to the tax laws that did you in".