January 28, 2009
California tells taxpayers to shut up and wait
If you live in California -- like me -- it's official: your tax refund is looking very, very iffy.
ABC News has learned that tax refunds are now on hold in California for the first time in state history, according to the state controller's office.
"Unfortunately, we have asked the California Franchise Tax Board not to send over tax refund claims beginning today because we will not be able to process them and have them out the door by Feb. 1 when a 30-day delay in tax refunds goes into effect," Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman to California State Controller John Chiang, tells ABC News.
During the 30-day delay, the controller's office estimates that a combined 2.74 million California individuals and businesses will have their tax refund delayed.
I have a couple of suggestions for my fellow inmates:
If you owe taxes, file your return, but delay paying the Franchise Tax Board by at least one month, and then pay only what you owe. Let the fiscal morons in Sacramento spend time and money to collect the penalty for the late payment.
But even more importantly, everyone ought to claim the maximum number of deductions on their W-4 forms, reducing the amount of taxes withheld from each paycheck. This will have the practical effect of cutting off the flow of money into Sacramento for the entire year.
Rather than having the California legislature spend, spend, spend our money all year long and then make us wait for our refunds, let's make them wait, wait, wait for us to send our hard-earned greenbacks to the tax man.
Posted by Mike Lief at January 28, 2009 08:27 PM
| TrackBack
Comments
10-to-1 says that, within a matter of days, the california legislature will do the following:
1) pass a law increasing fees & penalties on late payment of taxes 500% or more
2) pass a law making "changing the W-4 to save on withholding" a criminal offense. they'll call it 'perjury', or some such.
in the end, california's doomed. the state will *never* give up its power; they've already proved they'll *never* slash programs/lay off state "employees"/cut the budget.
Posted by: the asset at January 29, 2009 02:46 PM