0.<
Tax return came in today.
"Wait...Jack. YOU get a tax return?"
"Yeah. It's never more than $2k in total but it helps."
"So you don't pay taxes?"
"No, I do. I claim 0 dependents."
Basically I lend money to the U.S government.
I over pay in my withholdings and at the end of the year I get back what I over paid.
The money usually pays for yearly subscriptions that I need for work, refreshing or repairing clothes, new tires for my bike.
Oh right.
I don't have a bike anymore.
Last one I had was dismantled with bolt cutters while I was at work.
0.<
Restocking the pantries.
And if there's anything left, treat myself to a dinner out.
This year though, not so much.
"Whoa whoa whoa Jack. Slow down. You pay for subscriptions for work shouldn't you write those off?"
"No."
Listen man.
In order to build a working tax code and actually balance the nations check book I have to know the full cost of things.
For example.
"Ice" drinks.
The little bottles of fizzy water with flavor.
$1.27
Doesn't seem like much...unless you consider those same drinks were less than $0.50 before the pandemic.
What the fuck does it matter that gas prices are artificially low if that doesn't translate to the grocery bill.
When I was driving I only had to fill the tank once a month or so. Maybe once every couple weeks if I was making extra trips.
What the fuck does it matter if gas prices have stayed the same when everything else has a literal 200% increase?
When minimum wage still sits at $7.25/hr?
Which if minimum wage had maintained the standard on which it was originally set.
Would be about $33.45/hr.
You do the math.
I did.
A million fucking times.
"Oh, but if we pay people that much prices will sky rocket and inflation will spiral out of control."
"Fuck off."
When literally 90% of profits and wages shuffle up to the C Suite who's the fucking problem?
Why exactly would inflation spiral out of control?
Funny thing about being me.
All of the facts and figures are there, in my brain pan, but when I'm told to "Use my Words" the first thing I say is Fuck Off.
You figure it out.
Ask me again why I just want to be left the hell alone most of the time.
If you haven't figured it out yet I'll explain it to you.
I'm a mostly non verbal autistic person with minor tics.
Well not minor.
Just heavily suppressed.
Learning music was an awakening for me.
Because if I sang I could talk.
If I did a spoken word poem I could speak.
If you've ever spent any serious amount of conversation time with me you'll notice.
The way when I'm interrupted I'll repeat almost a whole paragraph of what I just said just so I can get back to where I was.
Then, start listening to rap battles.
My bars are gold aren't bruv.
I breath coal from the stars and blow diamonds out into the world.
Anyways...the Baftas.
Editing and handling.
Racisim v.s. disability.
Truth is either edit it all or leave it raw.
The gentlemen on stage shouldn't have to be "used to it".
Me?
I would have thrown up the middle finger and walked off.
But that's white privilege.
The dude in the audience should have had appropriate placement in the building.
That was just a fuck up on everyone planning the events part.
"Let's put the dude with Tourette's in the middle of a crowd with attention regularly being pulled to them in an emotionally charged environment and expect them not to tik."
Fuck all the way off.
Should have had a seat in an aisle with access to a bathroom or other space they could slip to when they needed to. I guarantee you bro has coping mechanisms that allow him to deal with the day to day but was thrown into a situation they'd never experienced before.
And left with his ass hanging in the wind.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa Jack...you were talking about taxes."
Yeah, well, you got to understand.
I'm not a savant.
Just someone fighting for survival with a normal level of intelligence.
A dude with skills most of the people with my issues never learn because they're never given the opportunity to develop in their youth.
Because they're tranquilized into stillness and never given the opportunity to organize their thoughts.
Because the people around them never learn to communicate with them to see what is going on in their heads.
Or they're thrown into places under the care of people that view them as subhuman.
Ask a def person how that feels.
Ask a blind person why they get so irritated when the sighted leave their bullshit laying around everywhere.
That's why I'm always 5 to 10 steps ahead of people.
Because I have to be.
I'll leave the dark part of that alone for now.
Back to Taxes.
Claiming Zero.
That's the trick of the trade isn't it?
Most everyone fills out a w-4.
Many find themselves in trouble because they claim a dependent and then earn more than they expected and end up owing taxes.
So I claim 0.
Over pay.
Then hire a tax person to make sure I get back what I'm owed
But that's the kick in the dick isn't it?
The way the current taxes are structured your average worker has no say in their taxes.
Can't afford someone to do the taxes for them.
Shit.
This year I went without groceries for almost a month to pay to have my taxes done.
Not everyone can handle that kind of thing.
Not everyone can hire someone to do their taxes.
But, that's the trick of the trade in the U.S.
You have to have someone do your taxes to make sure you're not under paying and to make sure if you over paid you get back what is yours.
Think about that for a few seconds.
This guy.
Jack
The guy that can juggle complex algorithmic expressions by visualizing them, hires someone else to do their taxes?
MMhmm.
Because the tax code is fucked.
Full of non logical functions and variables that change from year to year, sometimes month to month.
Tax preparers have to take whole college level courses every year just to file your w-2.
Fucked.
"Get to the point Jack, you're on way too many tangents."
Taxes.
35%
That's the average for almost every person making under $100k/yr
State
Federal
SSI
Medicaid
Medicare
Sales Tax
Property Tax
Licensing fees
Insurance
Minimum average 35%
Do the math.
I'll wait.
A lot of you, when you factor in Insurance are going to be like
"75% !?!?!?!?" But I only make $40k!!"
Yeah.
Like I said.
Fucked.
Where as people making over $100k typically (not always) are paying 0 to 15%.
And those paying 15% are the people not dodging what the tax code says they owe.
Welcome to Ragennomics kids.
"Oh, but they donate soooo much."
On average, less than 1% of their income which they use that 1% of donations to knock off about 3% of their taxes in return.
Then use subsidies to fund their businesses.
For example.
Tesla was giving carbon credits and other sweeteners to develop....the cyber truck.
The only reason tesla stayed soluble for so long and didn't collapse under it's own ineptitude was because they sold those credits to other companies for a tidy little profit.
Credits paid for the by the tax payer.
Sold to companies that couldn't earn on their own because of how much they polluted.
Then pocketed and turned into what?
Funding for platforming white supremacists with eugenicist ideologies?
While companies that should have been improving their emissions were given a free pass to do business as usual.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions right?
Math doesn't lie.
That's why the C-Suite hates me.
Because I see through their bullshit and can (when I need to) speak their language.
MAGA right?
Wanting to return to a time of Jim Crow.
While ignoring the things that actually "Made America Great" was
75 to 90% tax rates on the top earners.
Salary caps in football terms.
Public transit for workers and laborers.
Defunded after the civil rights movement of the 60's and 70's
A post office that offered an alternative banking service.
Lobbied nearly out of existence by banks and finance firms.
Minimum wage that allowed a single worker to support a family of 4.5
Decoupled from inflation during the 1970s
Mostly free college tuition
turned into a debt load in the 1980s.
An education system meant to teach students life skills and foster science and the arts...that's in the constitution btw.
Turned "no child left behind" in the 2000's
Anyways.
I do the math.
Because I can't stand an unbalanced equation.
Because math is the language of the Universe.
Written in the stars
Expressed through song.
How do I control my tics?
Rewired my brain bits into thinking typing is vocalization.
By learning type so fast I can type stream of conciseness almost faster than I can speak it when I get rolling.
And then my fingers tic away so fast you wouldn't know what I was saying unless you put a keyboard under it.
Doesn't stop me from tapping my forehead, or sniffing, or rubbing my nose, or cracking my knuckles, or shaking my leg, or sneering, or my voice sounding mean when I don't want it to.
Trust me.
Learning to cope and/or mask isn't an easy thing.
In fact, it feels impossible most days.
So yeah.
I'm a Hermit.
by definition
Because it's the only way I can be me without people staring.
I'm not afraid of going outside.
It's just that as I get older the less I'm willing to put up with other peoples bullshit or stay silent when I see some shit ass doing some fuck shit.
Stay Safe
