Well I'm In The Process Of Filing My Taxes Online!

I'm kinda almost finished though!

I must say that this is the first time that I have ever filed my taxes online! And for me - and I don't know why - but it felt like a scary thing to do!

First of all there was my local area tax which is called the Earned Income Tax - EIT for short. This is a tax that my local area has where residents are charged a 1% tax on any income that they have earned. Of course in the previous years I have always filed this tax the old way which was by filling out the form, paying the tax and mailing it in. But this year I decided to try and file online. Well the first time I tried to file this form online it wasn't working for me right and I got frustrated and stopped. Then a few days later I decided to try it again and it went almost 100% smoothly! I was still quite nervous filing it out maybe because it is getting so near the due date to file the income tax forms. But I did manage to get through it in one session and when I saw "your tax return has been filed successfully", I breathed a sigh of relief! *I should note here that while filing a tax return online may be more easier and convenient for some, I noticed that as far as my local tax return is concerned the company that handles it charges a fee for filing online if you owe any tax!

Ok so next comes my state (Pennsylvania) income tax form. Now while I was feeling good about filing my local tax online successfully, I was still a bit nervous about going to the next filing - I don't know why - maybe it was just because I was doing it for the first time! But after a slow start, I did successfully manage to file my state income tax form online as well and as well I got that same "your tax return has been filed successfully".

Goody! I was successfully able to file both returns online and I made it by the due date (which is next week!)

I haven't filed my federal income tax return online yet because doing 2 of them in one day is just too much more than my nerves can stand! So I still have a few days left yet to file my federal return online.

If you have never filed your income tax forms online before I'm here to tell you that it is kind of a scary thing - at least for me it was - but it may be something that you might be interested in doing. Of course you save the cost of a stamp but maybe that is just a small matter.

I'm blogging about this mostly because I don't know why I put myself in such a state of nervousness when I was trying to do this. In fact I think my nervousness and anxiety about doing this made it even worse! But I got through the first 2 forms and I'm feeling good! Now I have the one form - the federal - left to do.

If you're thinking about filing your taxes online you may find out that it isn't as hard as you thought it might be!

In California Taxpayers May Get An IOU Instead Of A Tax Refund!

Like a lot of states, California is also feeling the "pinch"! Not since 1992 has the state issued IOU's instead of cash payments. In 1992, amid a budget crisis triggered by a deep recession, natural disasters and the Los Angeles riots, California ran short of cash and was forced to send out thousands of IOUs. They resembled checks but included a notice that they could not be paid by California "for want of funds."

In addition to maybe not receiving tax refunds, there is also the possibility that some student grant payments will not be made as well and that vendors may also not be paid! Under the state Constitution, schools and bondholders get first rights to any cash from the state. Among the first to get IOUs instead of payments would be business and individual taxpayers who are expecting refunds, local governments and recipients of grants from that state's student aid organization. Last year, more than 10 million taxpayers received state refunds totaling $8 billion.

Court-appointed lawyers, 1,700 judges, legislators and their staffs would also go unpaid. And officials are preparing to delay a popular program that helps elderly and disabled Californians by paying their property taxes.

Last year, nearly 5,500 homeowners benefited from a 32-year-old Property Tax Program, which was created to help keep low-income elderly people from being forced to sell their homes or lose them to foreclosure.

(For more information about student loans and grants, just click here)

There is a budget gap (projected to reach $41.6 billion dollars by the middle of next year) in California and no agreements between Govenor Schwarzenegger and the democratic legislators so far.

In a letter sent to the Democrats on Tuesday night explaining his veto, Schwarzenegger wrote: "The measures you sent me punish people with increased taxes, but do not make the serious cuts in spending necessary to balance our budget; do nothing to help keep California families working during this recession; and do nothing to help Californians facing foreclosure in this mortgage crisis."

Another Fee That Farmers May Have To Pay?

As a person that does grant research for a living, there have been times when I have had to defend them but here is a strange story!

It seems that there is a proposed new fee that farmers may have to pay for some of their farm animals! Here is an excerpt:

"An Environmental Protection Agency proposal to combat air pollution from flatulent farm animals would require farms with large number of animals to pay annual fees of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 for each hog."

If this proposed fee becomes law, it is estimated that some farmers could pay as much as $30,000 per year!

Farmers (as well as mostly everybody else) are struggling now as it is and as you can well imagine some farmers are not happy with this proposed fee!

You can read more about this proposed fee by going to the link below:

Making Farmers Pay For "Gassy" Animals?

A Tax On Grocery Bags!

I saw this headlined article and couldn't believe it!

There is a mayor who wants to put a 20-cent tax on plastic grocery bags! That means that a customer / shopper would have to pay an additonal 20 cents
for each grocery bag that they use!

I really think that this is so ridiculous! However I am reminded of my local Aldi store where shoppers are charged something like 25-cents to buy their grocery bags.

The tax is being proposed because of the feeling about how plastic bags are not good for the environment and to encourage people to re-use their bags.

Here is a link to the news story!

More News On The Ever-Increasing Foreclosure Front

Here is a current article about Prsident Bush and the current foreclosure problems that are plaguing homeowners who can't afford to meet their monthly mortgage payments.

While the President said that he didn't approve of giving homeowners out and out grants, he did favor programs that would help homeowners with good credit to be able to re-finance their mortgages. However I think that a big problem with this is that there are a lot of homeowners that have bad credit ratings who need help with meeting their monthly mortgage payments. There are a lot of homeowners who have taken mortgages with very high rates and more worse they have taken out adjustable rate mortgages as opposed to fixed-rate mortgages. With adjustable rate mortgages the monthly mortgage payments are not the same every month and will sometimes increase to a lot more than what was paid the previous month.

I was watching one of those infomercials about how there is a lot of money to be made with foreclosures but all I could really think about when I was watching this program was about the people and families that have lost their homes!

One Person CAN Make A Difference!

A student felt absolutely boggled down with all of the college costs that he had. But then he decided to do something about it - and he did! He managed to get started a new program that provides incentives to students who remain in their state after they finished college. The reasoning behind this is that the students would leave the state after they finished college and the new program that was put in place gives the students the incentive to stay in that state.

Of course getting this law/program passed was not easy and the student said that one of the hardest parts was getting enough signatures to get the initiative passed.

A well noted point in the story was that a lot of people feel that as far as politics is concerned they don't think that they can make a difference. But one student managed to do just that! He made a difference!

Should Taxpayers Have To Pay For Inmate's Sex Change Surgery?

This was also added to my Grant Basics 101 blog but I think that it should also go here because it has to do with taxpayer dollars.

Should Taxpayers Have To Pay For An Inmate's Sex Change Operation?