YOUR TAX RETURN
It is appropriate that we occasionally reflect on the process and its product. The entire affair at times strikes me as bordering on the insane. Often, it feels wholly irrational to spend as much time as we do pondering and fretting about a largely misunderstood act, the filing of a tax return. Anton Chekov in his novel “Ward Number 6” ruminates on the definition of sanity and who gets to decide who is sane and who is not. Are we insane to subscribe our names to inscrutable documents; or, is the fear of being unfairly punished for one’s ignorance, merely paranoid? One might justifiably feel that the government is setting us up. By making the tax code incomprehensible to all but the highest level of specialized tax professionals (which excludes even most tax preparers) we are perhaps induced often to err in the execution. I suspect that few comprehend how most of the many entries on their tax return are determined. Many who carefully examine a restaurant check before paying, only scantly peruse their tax return before signing and filing.
SELF ASSESSMENT MADNESS
The self assessment tax system is an odd concept. Your real estate tax bill is determined by the county assessor and millage rate. The sales tax you pay is derived from what you spend. How your income tax liability is determined, however, is akin to a customer being allowed to set the price when buying a car subject only to an occasional adjustment by a fair price commission choosing to review one percent of purchases. The taxpayer determines his tax by the income and deductions he reports subject to audit. Matching Forms 1099, K-1s and W-2s has taken away ... Read More »
Moratorium on adoptions from Russia
Artem Saveliev
So, to the extent there's blame on both sides, hopefully it will get addressed on both sides. Russian government needs to fix its process and transparency at the source and US authorities need to investigate this "mother" for her actions.
The saddest part in all this is that this event has the potential to disrupt many other adoptions of kids who, absent adoptive parents, have no future. Russian media has gone to town with this case making it an example of the "bad Americans". And granted, there are some and there have been well documented cases of Russian kids abused by adoptive American parents. But, who's adopting these kids in Russia? Almost no one because there is no culture of adoption in Russia. Yet, there have been thousands of successful American adoptions. So they don't want to give the kids to Americans, but can't take care of them themselves. Who suffers from this righteous indignation? The kids. The government just gets to score political points.... Read More »
Adoption from Russia
Maybe the child does have psychological or emotional problems, I don't know. But what I think is certain is that if he didn't have them before being placed with this person, he will surely have them after the ordeal she put him through. I don't want to judge but I can't help finding her actions unconscionable. Did she even try to get help from psychologists, etc. before shipping this kid back to Russia as if he were a broken appliance she could just return?
I read that in the past couple of years, there have been several US adoptive parents that have killed the kids they adopted from Russia. Are the Russians doing ANY psychological evaluations before placing these kids? Heartbreaking any ... Read More »