Sunday: Tax day

Part 1:

It's far easier to complete the Hawaii state taxes when you discover that there's a simple form that doesn't require you to enter a thousand zeros on a dozen different forms.  Basically that reduced the time to do taxes down to about an hour, small enough that the laundry I put in before starting still isn't dry.

I apparently didn't put down the amount I underpaid on the Tax Day post from last year.  I think it was something like $1000.  Yeah.  I fucked it up a bit last year.  This year? $500.  So I'm slightly better, but still not correct.  Wonderful.  I guess I mess with the withholding thing again this week.  I think I need like (n-0.5) withholding credits or whatever they're called.

The breakdown this year was: FICA/SS: 5.5%, Federal: 14.2%, State: 6.6%, Total: 26.3%.  Huh.  So somehow I have a lower effective tax rate than last year?  I wonder if this means I screwed up one of those returns.  Whatever, it's done, I'll write the checks, we'll all be happy afterwards.

I'm also somewhat curious what I did with my redo of Donald Duck's taxes last year.  If I remember correctly, inflation adjusted DD made kind of a small amount, and having three dependents got him a pile of EIC deductions.  I wish I'd actually put it into a post.  Oh well.

Part 2:

I saw this video yesterday:

And despite knowing that it's futile to try to use reason, I went to FRED, and pulled out some data.  First, take the industrial utilization as the amount of potential slack that magic supply side effects could use.  Now, assume that you make the same percentage of income at full utilization.  Compare that to the current federal deficit:

Replot, but now plot up what a "zero deficit" curve would be by adding the deficit to the tax reciepts:

This shows a direct plot of utilization.  Note how we always have basically 20% slack?  That's because we live in a capitalist society, and having that slack means we can shift resources to new projects if necessary.  The recession has certainly put a crimp on it, though, with an additional 10% being unused.  Anyway, determine how much more we need to cover the zero deficit scenario:

 Convert that value into the required utilization necessary to implement that change:

Now, first, note again that utilization is on average 80%, with no obvious swings relating to tax breaks.  Therefore, we could have stopped with just that plot and claimed that trickle down economics is obviously untrue.  Next step, note that the current required utilization to fund things is near to 1.0.  If the claim is that taxes unduly burden the economy such that we leave resources unused, then this suggests that we would optimally use all resources if taxes were zero.  Therefore, in order to obtain the utilization necessary to produce a deficit free economy, we would need to not have taxes, which of course creates a paradox.  It's possible to claim that in this magic tax free economy, industry would grow much faster than it currently does, such that 80% utilization represents a larger economic base.  Still, for this to be at all workable, you have to sort out the problem that we need to introduce an increase in the economic base equal to the entire slack.

Again, logic isn't the point of that douchebag in the video above, but it's still interesting to think about.

Part 3:

Sushi.

I had to get karaage, after watching this video yesterday.

I again had structural issues with my ahi.

Part 4:

• Turns out it's not just a joke.
• It seems like this is exactly the kind of thing we have a Department of Education for.
• More stuff about taxes.
• Really? I like Mewtwo's current form.  This just looks stupid and ugly.
• It turns out I was bored yesterday and reread all of Oglaf.  Still NSFW, although this one is ok (except for possible ads that I have blocked).  It has a bear.
• I always wonder about the ships I see from my lanai or when I'm down in the shipping district.  Now I can figure out what they are and where they're going.
• So wait...this is a pie, but inside the pie is brownie?  I wish I'd seen this before going grocery shopping.