Writer’s Rant for 1/23/24
“The trick is to stop thinking of it as ‘your’ money.” (an IRS auditor). So if you haven’t figured it out yet, today I am thinking abut the upcoming tax season. It’s not fair. We go from the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” to tax season and “The Most Terrible Time of the Year.” It’s a pain to search and sort through that stack of last year’s papers that you have piled so neatly and avoided looking through until now. It’s even worse if you do your own taxes and you have to navigate through the many forms the IRS so graciously provides us with. They make it possible for you to make any and all sources of income available to them so they can have their fair share. If you end up paying in the end, well let’s just say, it’s a good thing you don’t love money. And if you are getting a refund, that’s great, until you realize it was your money to begin with and they’ve been safe-guarding it for you all year. You have probably heard the saying “The love of money is the root of all evil.” It is often misquoted as “Money is the root of all evil, ” but evil does not stem from money itself. It’s your love of money that’s the problem! Even if you don’t have a lot, but you crave more, that’s greed. And greed is evil. So don’t be greedy; if you have any, just give it all away. With our country’s thirty plus trillion dollar debt (which could have been reduced at least a couple of million if the Biden’s and Trump’s had paid their fair share), the IRS could use some extra cash about now. And you don’t need all that money. As Oscar Wilde said: “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” So, just imagine all the things you can do without money. (This Writer’s Rant made possible by American Express).
