An Illusory IRA Deduction

Tax time is when everyone becomes a Republican (temporarily, at least).  This year Helen and I learned that our with-holdings were not keeping pace with our apparently lavish earnings.

In short, we owe.  A lot.

Today we got excited about the possibility of opening up an IRA and reducing our tax liability.   Citibank seduced us, with their web ad about funding dreams and reducing taxes at the same time.  They get into the messy details later, but the opening page is somewhat deceptive.   We went all the way through with it, before reading the fine print: we make too much to qualify for the deduction.  We then spent a lot of the day figuring how to revoke the IRAs, because without the tax benefit we could use our money better elsewhere.

Our tax situation grows more complicated every year; this is the last year of tax soldiering on our own.  There is no doubt that we are well off, but we do not feel particularly rich.  We'll know we've arrived when we finally set up our tax shelter in the Caiman Islands.

Comments

[Bill Cash]

The only appropriate response is "LOL."

Signed,
The Upper Classes

[Marcus]

I realized very quickly that it was spelled wrong, but thought that was funny enough to leave alone!