I'm Loving the Man from Kenya!

Oh this post will get me into so much trouble.

Last night I finally finished my taxes.  Yeah....Blondetwit....duh!  Actually, I finished '09 AND '08 that languished all last year.  I knew I didn't owe anything (read: white-knuckle hoping) so there's actually three years to get them filed...not that I recommend that.

You see, when I did my '07 taxes, we got slammed!  I mean, I was in tears, couldn't figure out where precisely, I had so screwed it all up.  I am very analytical, so my response was to ultimately drag out the last 10 years' taxes.  And yes, I actually do know what the hell I'm doing.

Here's the short story on what I found out, without disclosing more than I would be comfortable doing:

In 2001, we made $30,000 more than in '07.  Interestingly, our deductions were within $100 of being the same both years.  What we had in '07 was that with $30,000 less, with the same deductions, we owed another $4000 more than we did in '01.  Our effective tax rate went from about 6% to more than 14%!  I've had people call me a liar on that before.  They don't do their own taxes and they know not of what they speak.  I've had others tell me they wondered if that's what really happened to them as well, because they've never 'owed' before either.  It shocks me how many people really don't understand their taxes.  No one gets that much money from me without me knowing precisely why.  And I don't mind paying taxes!  Take that teabaggers....

Aw gee Mr. Bush.  You've been so helpful.  And all that to support....oh crap, nevermind.  You know what it was all about.

Fast forward to April 2010.

I think, upon (personal emotional) analysis, that I avoided doing the '08 taxes because it frightened me to death...even though I was really quite certain that when I had re-done W4s and had more money taken out, we should have been covered.

For '08, we were   j u s t   b a r e l y   covered.  Our effective tax rate was was still more than 12%.

Once I got past my anxiety of '08, I tackled '09.  Lots of things have changed, but the bottom line is this:

We made $11,000 more in '09 than in '08, and, AND!, we had $5000 less in deductions.  Our effective tax rate had gone wwwwaaaaaaayyyyy down to a little over 8%.  That adds up to a lot of simoleons right there.

That's a damn sight better than double digits!  We qualified for a whole slew of new credits that the bad man in the White House brought to us.

Yes.  I am liking the Bad Man from Kenya.

P.S.  Have you seen what he's been doing overseas?????  Damn!  Who does he think he is, President or something?  Cheesh.