That $2000 number was as of 2006. It's 2014 now.
Then AT&T should have acted in 2006 instead of waiting this long. They are perfectly capable to make a sound business decision to lose money.
I like the UK system - if you're an employee and you're happy with the tax your employer has withheld on your behalf, you don't have to do anything. You get a statement at the end of the year telling you how much you've been paid and how much tax has been withheld - if you think they've got it wrong, or you want to claim deductions, you file a tax return saying so.
We could do this in the US. By could I mean, if we changed tax regulations -- the system is mostly in place already. Wage income is deducted "pay-as-you-go" here, too. All of my interest, dividends and gains were already reported (but not deducted) by the entities that paid them. The IRS could have just sent me a bill for that with what they already know. Most of the data I put on my 1040 is redundant for the IRS. The biggest impediment -- other than changing the law -- would be that not claiming all your deductions could result in paying far more than you really should owe, especially if you have a mortgage, give to charity, or need to report other such deductions.
Wait, you mean we need to SPEND MY TAX DOLLARS to calculate my taxes to for me one time, and then have me back check, and possibly calculated AGAIN with another software, on my own dime?
okay in all jokes aside I think IRS has a fairly big division to audit the top earners in the country. Essentially there are someone in IRS looking over all the reports from Bill Gates, Warren Buffets, and the like, and do their taxes for them, with dedicated systems to back check them, to make sure they are paying the right amount of taxes. You can call it audit, fact-checked, if you want, but at the end of the day someone in our government is doing the work of equivalent of filing their tax form for them.
What software do you use that adds up all your sales tax, property tax, fuel tax, and all the other taxes plus the fees that are passed on to you that are hidden in the costs of the goods and services you consume?
If you keep all your receipts and have them entered into a financial software then it will spit the appropriate info out for you.
Not to mention H&R Block made me pick between married/joint or married/separate at the beginning of the process, whereas when I did the calculations with a spreadsheet I could just change that input and see my tax calculated both ways (because either could be better depending on circumstances). H&R Block was able to figure out whether I should take the standard deduction or not; it should have been able to do the same for filing status.
A quick way on H&R Block software is to use the "go to" button to go back to the beginning and change the status. It will show the result on the calculation fairly quickly.
I'm sure it's included in the price of the computer, much like MS's licenses for crapware are included in Dells and HPs.
The crapware pays for the OS, which is why Linux versions of the same computer often cost more -- they have to make up for the lost crapware revenue. I mean really, cleaning off the crapware is part of the price you pay for a Windows computer.
And for a well-run IT shop the first thing about deployment is to make its own clean image free of all unnecessary software. Same for a well-run shop in education
Money is poor motivation and costs more than my time.
well said, sir!
"Everyone's head is a cheap movie show." -- Jeff G. Bone
