Tax Season –But Is Filing Intentionally Ambiguous?

“Tax Season – But Is Filing Intentionally Ambiguous,” is the title of today’s article and as is the case with many prose… that 1 sentence just about sums up the entirety of today’s article.

But let’s delve a little deeper…

So, generally in NYC you’re allowed to claim, “allowances,” on your taxes, withheld at the end of every pay period and typically outlined on every new hire’s W2 form. Nothing wrong with that, right? And on every employer’s W2 form there’s a sheet of paper where people can see these, “allowances,” which are usually for things like; Children, Spouses, Grandparent’s in your custody and other things for which the federal government awards tax exemptions.

But specifically what are those allowances/tax exemptions? And they seemingly change every single year. Whereby, in 2014 I personally recall getting 4 allowances including 1 tax allowance for student loan debts but in 2017 I only got 3 exemptions, as an example of the paperwork changing from year to year. And this has gone on for years… with misleading rhetoric and intentionally ambiguous paperwork forcing most Americans (or the ones who can afford it) to simply avoid tax paperwork altogether and to then hire an accountant to file their taxes for them. And the ambiguity is so much so that now-a-days these allowances have become so scrupled by politicians that most employer’s are often times only giving their new hires half of their federal W2 forms (*without the exemption sheets), with the hope that most people won’t even claim their proper tax exemptions!

Yes, you heard that correctly… where now this tax issue has become such a sticking point within corporate America and the federal government that most employer’s in NYC don’t even give their new hires the exemption sheet to properly file their I9 and W2’s anymore!

Nevertheless, not only does the federal government make this section of the I9 and W-2 intentionally ambiguous, assumingly to create a larger economy for accountants/tax consultants who then prey upon those who don’t file their own taxes… but also, now most employer’s in NYC are actually going a step further and now omitting the piece of paper within the W2 form hoping that employee's don't claim their proper allowances on every weekly check, leaving those funds for their employer! And to be honest, it keeps changing, so I don’t even know what those allowances are this year… which to me is intentionally ambiguous paperwork! Which is to say, that in today’s NYC you’re lucky if your employer even gives you the entire I9 and W2 form at all.

But they called me, “entitled,” as I washed Shelly’s dishes downtown in reference to Shelly Fireman another billionaire in NYC who never started an Ai company like mine or ever dealt with half of these issues like my small business has. Shelly Fireman or rather another example of someone who took part in this practice of omitting the exemption sheet from the I9 and W2 form when hiring in NYC and I'd also like to note that some of these people are billionaires and millionaires cheating on their taxes at the expense of their employee's! And this is nothing new… just some more intentionally ambiguous paperwork used for disguising a larger problem within America’s tax code/economy. Nevertheless, with that being said this circumstance is in itself egregious and as an, “internet reporter,” I urge you as readers to please follow along with me for a minute while I delve slightly deeper into the contrasting theories which I believe are now contributing to this, “financial circumstance.”

So not everybody in America believes in paying federal taxes. In fact, one of the ways that Donald Trump got rich in the 1970’s and the 1980’s was by essentially refusing to pay his mortgage and subsequently the property taxes that went along with it. Yes, you heard that correctly. In the 1970’s and the 1980’s when Donald Trump first rose to prominence one of his first and biggest, “deals,” was actually based around his refusal to pay a mortgage on a significant share of NYC real estate, which then essentially turned into him, “daring the bank to foreclose,” with the understood retaliation that another owner would jeopardize NYC’s, “WASP culture,” along with the understood threat that Trump’s friends on Wall Street would retaliate if the bank foreclosed on his property. Yet, during that classic episode of, “Lifestyles Of People Who We Have Nothing In Common With,” Trump threatened the banks… that were they to foreclose on his real estate that his friends on Wall Street would undermine their bank and essentially take them under, as well. Needless to say, this is where the concept of, “refinancing your mortgage,” comes from today in it’s modern form. Whereby, Trump was eventually given the option to, "refinance," his skyscrapers and he ended up coming to terms with the banks who he owed for his Manhattan property's. (*And Trump also tore down centuries old artwork from the facade of several NYC skyscrapers that same year because NYC was starting to look too much like Europe. Thanks Gold Member. Although, to Donald’s defense… I would assume that several bankruptcy’s were heavily scrutinized around this time (the 1970’s and 1980’s) due to unruly property taxes in the NYC area pre-1985.)

But let’s examine that episode from 1975 a little more closely because as we all know Donald is often remarking on several things at once and most of his decisions are calculated positions. (*And I am not one of these, “Donald Trump is the devil,” type of people but this is a true story. Furthermore, if Donald himself would like to clarify anything that I might be mis-representing then be my guest, I only Tweet at his son every 2 months on Twitter.) Regardless, in retrospect and judging by Trump’s current role atop the GOP those arguments now seem as though they were nothing but veiled rhetoric in a city where MOST people, I would say, don’t pay taxes. Whereby, in hindsight I think that whole episode in NYC history was really over welfare and decades of high property taxes… and the fact that Trump, among others in NYC, couldn’t afford the skyscrapers himself was perhaps an indictment of, "the type of people," who did own Manhattan skyscraper at that time! Something that the media will rarely discuss in NYC, "the class of the upper class," which is part of the illusion of power.

And a VERY SIMILAR example of this very same occurrence has to do with the NY Times and their skyscraper costs. Whereby, "how many subscriptions does the NY Times have to sell in order to maintain their 60 story building?" And for those who don't know The NY Times has a building that costs millions of dollars to air condition every year alone and I don't know that they have over 100,000 subscribers paying over 2.99$ a month. So, there are several questionable economic practices these days in NYC. But you do the math… 10$ a paper? 50k dollars in monthly air conditioning costs… never mind.

Because what if some blogger took the NY Times market share? That's unthinkable. What if these company's filed bankruptcy and then we didn't drive pickup trucks and eat cheeseburgers? No, we need; Mcdonalds, Walmart, the NY Times and Ford... they create, "jobs." And that argument actually wins government contracts from time to time! IE the auto companies bailouts...

But with that being said... on one side many American’s disagree with the federal tax code and welfare system for a variety of reasons and in this instance property taxes were essentially used to justify the bankruptcy of Trump Tower and allowed Donald to maintain his property. And I live at the grass roots level in NYC where you hear these conversations frequently about how some people feel as though they shouldn’t have to pay taxes at all! Especially after some people have served their community's for decades only to go bankrupt due to unfavorable market conditions under 1 administration. Or you'll hear story's that prior taxation was unfair or that taxation and welfare is infringing upon our freedom(s). But then to continue upon that point even more people disagree with America’s tax code I find because they often believe that welfare is inequitably distributed to minorities and the poor, through food stamps and public transit… and even through military expenditures. Whereby, this argument essentially allowed Donald Trump to escape bankruptcy in the 1970’s and the 1980’s due to prior taxation. Whereby, in fact many people in the GOP today would PREFER a 0% tax economy, without welfare, for this very reason. So who is welfare protecting? Donald or the minorities?

And this is where you see all of these mis-leading headlines about how companies like Amazon and other corporate entities pay 0$ in taxes which is hardly true at all. Whereby, in reality I would guess that less than half of American citizens file taxes, meaning that in reality most CITIZENS pay 0$ in taxes not corporations... who often pay hundreds of millions in year taxes, if not billions, which is why these corporations spread that propaganda to infuse the public with their own frustrations. Regardless, I’ll wrap this article up after this last point but this entire circumstance is due to an intentionally ambiguous tax code which has been used as a scapegoat by some of America’s richest men, as well as the poor, typically centering around welfare and tax law!

-William Larsen, CiviliansNews.com Founder