Almost tax time!

Anyone dreading April 15? Not me! I have a dinner date with an old friend that night. But maybe more importantly, I finished my taxes weeks ago.

I am in training this week, hence the lack of blog posts. But I did have an interesting financial conversation yesterday. A guy in my group is foreign and here on a work visa. He has been working for this American company for a few years, but rather than drawing from his salary, has been letting it accumulate tax free in a bank account here. Now, when he moved, he had to put it into some fund to keep the tax free status, but now he’s worried about paying taxes in general. He’s used to a system where the money you owe in tax is just taken. The end. No later payments, no tax refunds. It was interesting to learn a little bit about another system and to hear just how crazy our system sounds to a foreigner.

One good thing came out of it. He just got here in February and was told by a coworker that when he files taxes, he will owe from the date of his move. True, but he thought that meant that when he files now, he will owe for that period, not realizing that we’re filing for 2009. Of course, we encouraged him to call his company’s relocation division and maybe the IRS helpline for clarifications about other reasons he may need to file.

Just goes to show how ridiculously confusing our system is, even on the simplest level.