Tag: taxes

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Tithes

Today on the Internet I saw a post that said this:

Leave your church today.

Tithe by helping someone in need

God is not in a building

I replied:

Even when I was religious, I considered any charitable donation part of my tithe.

I have a still-religious friend who considers the portion of his taxes that go towards social welfare programs to be part of his.

There are many ways to be the Body of Christ in the world.

And I stand by that.

I should do that calculation myself, sometime. The back-of-the-envelope that I just did (62% of federal spending, 15% effective federal tax rate) gives me about 9% of my salary Helping People via taxes. That’s not too bad.

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The menswear guy explains tariffs

This Bluesky thread was really excellent.

Hello! The US housing market has gotten very expensive, but I still dream of one day owning a home in a walkable neighborhood. In that spirit, I'm offering my consulting services. If you support the Trump tariffs, I can help you find US suppliers. Let me show you some examples. 🧵

— derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) 2025-04-05T02:44:35.545Z

I wear a lot of Actually Rather Expensive clothing, that I bought ten years ago, because I do try to buy and wear American…when I can.

But again: it’s expensive.

We can’t “just” move manufacturing here. There is no “just.”

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Reminder about taxes

Because some folks I know got hit with this one recently, here’s a reminder that when you are Married and you file your W4, the “married” checkbox makes the form assume you are the sole earner for your family, and it calculates your withholdings accordingly.

Yes, this is idiotic.

No, I don’t know why the W4 is written that way.

Here is a Personal Finance Reddit post with more information. As always, the IRS is the final arbiter on this stuff; internet people can try to explain it but always go back to irs.gov to be sure.