My Income Tax and Bob

(Here at The Back Road Café we wish we knew more about our readers out there in cyberland.  We know you are from 30 different countries, amazingly.  But we don’t know, for example, as I write this week’s column, how much to explain about US taxes. What’s the tax system in your country?  So I’m just going to write a bit about my own weird tax experiences.  But we’d love to know who you are and what you’re interested in!)

US citizens must file their income tax returns by April 15. Many people leave it to the last minute.  Post Offices stay open til midnight on the 15^th and long lines ensue.

The tax forms are dense and complicated (“add totals of lines 4, 7 and 9, subtract 3.5% of line 2, enter on line 21.”)

With my math anxiety, I’ve never tried filling out the daunting forms myself; I’ve always paid a tax professional to do it for me.  There’s a huge seasonal industry of individual tax preparers.  Modern hip people like my children do their taxes on line with Turbotax.  But I like dealing with a human being.

So for 30 years I’ve gone to Bob Beeson’s Minister’s Tax Service.  He learns all the changes in tax law every year and knows what deductions are allowed, if I qualify for the alternative minimum tax, what percentage of health care costs can be deducted, how many cents per mile for volunteers’ mileage, etc.  And his math is better than mine.

Bob was a Baptist minister for a while, but his accountant father made sure he had that skill as well, to support himself in dry times.  So he knows about rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s.  But only as much as Caesar demands and not one penny more. That’s especially helpful when, as is often the case, Tax Day and all those Holy Week services come about the same time.

The US Tax Code is notoriously complicated: many exceptions, quirks, downright unfairness.  I’m not just talking about how the rich are able to avoid paying taxes.  We ministers get a nice deal too; we are allowed to deduct all our housing expenses from our taxable income.  No one else can deduct light bulbs and rent, road gravel and propane delivery (in my case) from their taxable income.  No one else, that is, except military officers.  This somewhat sleazy tax law (we, the great prophets of justice get special treatment?) derives from the fact that for some ministers their compensation includes housing, a parsonage, while others only receive a salary.  Our partners in privilege, military officers, also sometimes get paid in housing. And those officers employ a government lobbyist to makes sure Congress, which is always trying to reform the tax code, doesn’t take away our precious housing deduction. We pacifist ministers love our military allies when it’s tax time.

Going to Bob is sort of like going to the dentist; once or twice a year, you dread it, but it actually turns out most of the time better than you thought; a cheerful guy with specialized knowledge.  Or you could say it’s sort of like getting your hair cut; while he fiddles with obscure regulations and deductions on his computer screen, we casually catch up on our kids the way I do with the woman waving scissors around my head.  But mostly it’s like going to – yes – a minister, because I share with him intimate private stuff; how much I gave to charities last year, how much I spent for my new hip.  As with a minister I can ask him those tender questions, like, is therapy deductible? 

My system is pretty disorganized; I do nothing on the computer like Quickbooks.  It’s all paper.  And my filing system is not great.  So in February or March I start sorting piles – housing expenses, car, books, stock interest and dividend income, charitable gifts.  Going through the credit card bills and the checkbook tracker I am reminded of the previous year: vacations, parking tickets, vet bills, Christmas presents.  Some happy memories, some sad reminders. 

I compare our expenses and income from the previous year. Our health care costs have leaped up recently, more and more for insurance, and this past year more on co-pay and labs and stuff not covered by insurance for my $80,000 hip replacement and my husband’s expensive medications.  But Bob figured out this year that we paid so much we actually got a deduction for those high health care costs.  I left his office in March with a huge tax refund.

So many emotions about taxes.  Like anger or frustration, for what it goes to. So much waste, so much war, so much unfairness.  Basically I believe in the social contract, that we all need to do our share for the whole, roads and government and aid to families with dependent children.

But I’m busting my butt to support the social contract and Mitt Romney pays taxes at a lower rate than I do.  (He paid 15%, almost the lowest rate.  Folks over $400,000 are supposed to pay 39%, but they pay accountants even more skilled than Bob to avoid their fair share.)

I was a tax resister for a couple years in college; I paid my income tax, but not a special tax that was added to phone bills to help pay for the Vietnam War. I was never prosecuted; I think there were too many of us anti-war protesters.  Maybe there’s a file on me somewhere in DC.

One more story about Bob.  His father was an accountant. He was a minister for a while, now a very pastoral tax preparer.  One time in his office I noticed something new on the walls; looking more closely I saw they were Grammy Awards, golden vinyl records for musical excellence.   Bob, I asked, whose are these?  Oh, my son and his band won those last year in LA.  The band?  Jars of Clay, a Christian rock band. I’ve heard of it. He’s a musician, I asked?  No, like me and his grandfather, he takes care of the money, he’s their manager.  He’s pretty good with money.  But I still do his taxes.

Copyright © 2013 Deborah Streeter