February 29, 2008

Leap year! I was born in a leap year, 1944, but not on February 29. Am still in the process of preparing my 2007 income tax returns, a process stalled while I wait for more forms. I was distressed to discover that we will owe the state of Maryland $616, and that we were assessed a penalty of $11 for not having enough withheld. What kind of bullshit is this.

Yea, that’s right Maryland sucks! With all the taxes assessed on its citizens this putrid state still has a budget deficit. We paid the state and the county $5000 in income taxes in 2007, not to mention the nearly $6000 we paid in real estate taxes. What the hell do the idiots in Annapolis spend this money on? The Inter-County Connector? The Purple Line? New schools? The only thing they can agree on is that nobody should smoke cigarettes, which is really ironic since the state of Maryland’s main product for 150 years was tobacco.

While we are talking about taxes, has anybody seen the assessed value of their house go down? All you hear about in the media is how the housing market is depressed and people are loosing their shirts because the value of the family home is in the tank. But not one word about property taxes going down to reflect the depressed market. I propose a moratorium on the payment of salaries to all elected officials in the state and county until the budget deficit is eliminated.