Tax Relief, My Rump!

Thanks to Turbo Tax, our taxes are done for another year. One of the perks of Turbo Tax is that their website will show you how much Bush's new tax cuts saved you. (Click here to try it yourself). According to our results, our tax relief came to $281. Woo-hoo. I hope some other average family is enjoying the remainder of that $1,600 "average family" tax savings. (Click here to read Bush saying that, because he did).

Oddly enough, though, the Tax Relief Calculator also says that our refund would have been about $200 more under the old system. Actually, I don't really mind either way. The federal government gets to keep a bit of what it sucked out of my paychecks all year, but they're giving back a substantial chunk of it. If, as the president suggests here, the changes make the new tax code more fair, then the difference simply means that the old plan was skewed in my favor, whereas the new plan is skewed less so. If that is true, then in previous years I was paying less than my fair share and now I will be paying fairly. It's only reasonable. Nonetheless, the part of me most absorbed in my own self interest wants to shout out, "Bring on the tax cut rollback!"