I wandered into the Post Office the other day asking for tax forms. I wanted the thick booklets printed by the IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board that I remembered from young adulthood. The postal clerk looked at me and laughed. “We used to carry those … about 25 years ago.” I blushed deep red and slunk away.
For much of my adult life, I’ve alternated between planting myself in front of a computer screen to wrestle with Turbo Tax and surrendering to a paid tax preparer. I arm myself with W-2s, stacks of documentation, lists of potential deductions. I grumble and growl at the process, especially when we end up owing money, but I’m pretty comfortable with the ins and outs of my moderately complicated tax status.
This year, however, it was my children’s turn to file taxes. I had visions of them sitting at the dining table as I did at age 16, with tax booklets, shuffling W-2s, flipping between the 1040 EZ page and the tax table, black ballpoint pen in hand, white-out off to the side. With any luck, each of them would be due a few hundred dollars, always a welcome addition to the pocket of a young adult. I looked forward to the rite of passage, a chance to impart the tiny bit of knowledge I’ve acquired. It would be an opportunity to spend quality time together while I scaffolded the skills needed for adulthood. I felt mildly virtuous; teaching how to fill out tax returns has to be part of the manual for good parenting, doesn’t it?
After the embarrassing initial lesson — one now downloads tax forms on the Internet, as I should have suspected, this being 2018 — I sat down with my daughter, ready to tackle what she called our “tedious nationwide homework.” As she filled out forms, I bounced from her side to the Internet and back. I hadn’t at looked at her particular tax form — the form for unencumbered people with ridiculously low wages — in decades.
At one point, as I struggled to understand the instructions, she looked at me quizzically. “Mom, how do people who don’t speak English well do this? How do kids whose parents can’t or don’t help them figure this stuff out?” She conceded that like many of her generation, she would have conducted an Internet search, “How do I file my taxes?” or looked up a video on YouTube. This day, however, she was grateful for parental guidance.
As we continued, another thought occurred to her. “I don’t even know what this money goes for, and in what percentages?” Is she paying for war in Syria? For Donald Trump’s lawyer? For interstate highways? These questions nagged at her and will continue to do so as her tax burden becomes greater.
My son, slightly younger, met the task with more resistance. He wandered away a few times, begged me to do it for him, sang at the top of his lungs as I was reading tax codes to him.
When he finished, though, he was more pragmatic. “It’s cool to get money back,” he pointed out. I teasingly reminded him not to spend his whole state refund – six dollars – in one place.
Once we were finished, he recognized the value of the hours spent. “It’s a good learning experience for my future.” This is not normally a child who is excited about learning experiences for his future, but the $171 federal refund may have helped convince him. “It’s a lot of work,” he said. “If I had to do it alone, I wouldn’t file for a refund unless I really needed the money.”
Like many adults, I do my taxes every year because the law demands it.
I’m irritated when my tax money pays for the president’s security staff to spend a weekend golfing at Mar-a-Lago, or when I read that a military contractor bought a $600 toilet seat. I’m generally inclined to pay a little more in taxes if it means someone else can eat, and a good deal less enthusiastic about funding wars.
When the time came to explain taxes to my children, however, my thinking shifted slightly.
While initially dragging them through the paperwork, addressing and stamping the envelope to the Franchise Tax Board and marching it to the mailbox may have some kind of character-building benefit, I realize I need to have deeper, more serious conversations about where their money goes, and what they can do if they don’t agree with how their taxes are being spent. I want them to become advocates for the proper use of their hard-earned money.
Fortunately for all of us, I’ll have plenty of time for that conversation next year, since I won’t be traipsing to the Post Office to look for tax forms.
Therein lies the problem. I don’t want my tax money to fund things I disagree with and you don’t want your tax money to fund things you disagree with.
If taxes were far lower we could afford to support causes we agree with using our own disposable income. Instead, we have politicians and bureaucrats decide for us. In the end, we are all unhappy. A tax refund is just money the government lets you have back because you overpaid.
Understood. The desired use of our money is very much a reflection of our values. Those are, I believe, conversations best had with a great deal of scaffolding where teens and even young adults are concerned.