Tax Bitch #1

Apparently I'm a rich college student, because I owe Barack Obama $400 this year! Most of this is due to a couple scholarships I received which counted as "Other Income" and "Self-Employment Income" (Don't ask, I don't know how that works, either).

In the course of attempting to find ways to escape his Highness' tax collectors, my Dad and I came across a few delightful nuggets of information you might not have known about the tax system in this country.

For instance, if your child has been kidnapped, the residency requirement for child exemptions will be waived, and you can still consider that child a dependent. Phew! I guess it's good you aren't taxed for having your kid snatched.

Also, you can take the child exemption for any child born alive, even if that child dies soon after birth. You cannot, however, take the exemption for stillborn children. Thanks for plugging up that loophole, boys. I can just see a bunch of rich bastards knocking up their wives and then whacking them in the gut with 2x4s just for the tax savings.

Finally, and I am sure I will expand on this much in the future, double taxation of dividends is one of the most evil components of the tax system, not only for its distortion of reality, but also for the perverse incentives it establishes for corporate management. Terrible.