A dreaded PAPER PILE, when it’s charmingly manageable-looking./Image: Licensed Adobe stock, Tierney.
Fiduciary Felicitations, right-wing finance fans!
As the Alt-righters we all are, we at Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW) probably don’t need to tell you that guns, not papers, are for stockpiling. Although, as tax time rolls around, piles of papers seem to erect themselves in our homes with little effort on our parts, right SYRW readers? Then again, as Alt-ers tend to be preoccupied with the “Socialist” dystopia to come, we also tend to hoard food, water, and lots of other things we’ll need when the Deep State finally comes to git us, and git us good! With the GOP tax “reform” that recently passed, you may have thought it was your cue to shred and toss all those papers the Nanny State wanted records of so they could control you. The good folks at The New York Times (NYT) said not to be hasty in beginning your shred-and-toss paper purge. Here are some papers you should hang on to.
How to Get Away With Tax Fraud
Given that you are card-carrying Right Wing Nut Jobs (RWNJ) you are, no doubt, super-not-fond of a little organization called the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If you were smart, normal, and didn’t have an obsession with a childish notion of “fairness,” you would realize paying taxes is part of living in an all-around-healthy community with a strong social safety net.
Anywho, you should save most documents related filing taxes for three years. If you “neglect” to report more than 25 percent of your income “somehow,” you should hold on to applicable docs for ten years, says NYT. So tedious! How do people do tax law-related stuff for a living? Also, we have to reprint this hilariousness that NYT alerted us to. If you “don’t file at all,” you should keep those records forever. More chances for the Nanny State to keep tabs on you, right?
“Keep records indefinitely if you file a fraudulent return,” from a tip sheet NYT linked on their site and here.
Some Digital, Some Paper?
Scan all your receipts, we say! It’s much easier to link someone to a digi-document than a hard copy one, after all. Here’s a link to a receipt scanner. We think that would be money well spent. Just sayin’. If you get audited, the auditors won’t demand originals of most things, though there are some quirks, which NYT linked and we are too., from Publication 256. Online credit card statements will suffice, apparently.
The Internet is a cesspool of right-wing disinformation, but we guess with something as straightforward as tax documents, it’s less sketchy to have only digital records of all your documents.
However, don’t assume you can be rescued by digital bank records if need be.
Investments
If you’re invested in a right-wing lifestyle, it may not be possible to keep any documents related to that. The bank you keep your money with can help with some record-keeping, but don’t make assumptions in this area.
In other mind-numbing tax law news, there are lots of particulars about record-keeping for investments that you simply must be aware of. Go to the NYT document that inspired this article for more!
More Rules, Rules, Rules
If you haven’t gouged your eyes out yet, we’d like to remind you that there are lots of other sub-areas in receipts to be mindful of. It’s sort of similar to how DTrump finds a new area of social progress to move the nation–and probably the world–backward in each day! Fun!
And More
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FIRA) remarks on its website how being an adult sure involves a lot of bills. We have to agree! Remember being young, carefree, and unencumbered by paperwork that seems to keep adding up and up?
Don’t Think of Cryptocurrency as a Tax Haven
All you right-wingers out there who just can’t resist the idea of putting your money in “untaxable” areas–geographic or otherwise–shouldn’t think of digital currencies as some sort of loophole. This April, you’re going to need to declare your cryptocurrency income. And it won’t be pretty if you don’t! Ahem–DONALD J. TRUMP!
Some of us here at SYRW can attest to the what FIRA quotes Greg McBride, Chief Financial Analyst at Bankrate.com as remarking on. Don’t let the paperwork pile up! It’s so, so, so much worse to have to deal with a huge pile of paper or digital records than a small one. It sounds obvious, but it can be easy to forget. It’s a good thing for Don Jon that he doesn’t mind things piling up when attended such as the emotional scar tissue that is piling up on the nation that we’re all going to have to pick away at for years after this horrible person is done inflicting His Orangeness on us all.
Misty Watercolored Paper Memories
So sang Babs Streisand–aside from the paper part. And Rob Leiber, who wrote the above multi-times referenced article, made a fabulous little observation about how paper documents can jog your memory and be a fun trip down the little lane called memory.
Don’t you want a vivid reminder of living through the nightmare known as the Trump Era? If so, documents
Death and Taxes
Remember that famous saying by founding father and all-around genius, Benjamin Franklin: “In this world only two things can be said to be certain: death and taxes.?” We’d go on step, or more, actually, further and say: only one thing can ensure we have enough funds to ensure a healthy, happy society for everyone: taxes. So, pay them, people–PAY THEM!
The NYT noted, and we happen to agree, that dealing with papers can be fun in this overly digitized, sparse world we live in today. Having hard copies of your documents isn’t the best for the environment, but as good Alt-environment-haters, that doesn’t trouble us, or, we presume, our readers much. And, as evidenced above, there are great right-wing reasons to hang on to some of the paper records you may be tempted to tear into shreds until your hands bloody, because why should you have to do anything for that big, federal government. Until next week, mendacious readers: cha-CHING!
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© 2018 Akbar Khan
