It’s the last week to file your taxes if you are going to make the April 18 deadline for the year 2011. And while many who were expecting a huge refund may have completed this onerous task clear back in January or early February, those of us who know that they will end up paying typically put it off till around the last minute. That turned out to be last Friday for me.
?Document your receipts? was the advice I received from my tax man. Being self-employed I need to and can take deductions for everything from my home office to paying my children for doing work for my business. And so I try to keep very thorough records and document every receipt for every ream of paper, the utilities for my home office and more.
But I could learn a few things from this guy. He is billed here as ?The Most Tax Efficient Man in America?. It sounds as if he painstakingly documents every possible legal deduction and enjoys every minute of it.
And I admire him for it. I say ?Take every deduction you can?.
Unfortunately, though, I do not quite feel the same about General Electric, America’s largest corporation and the fact that they did not pay any taxes.
Somehow taxes on profits of $14.2 billion or even $5.1 billion from operations just in the United States, seems like it could substantially cut into the deficit and help with the balancing of the budget instead of doing it on the backs of the middle class and the poor.
