Tell me, what is to be gained by the IRS possessing your money instead of YOU? Ren if you don’t invest it, wouldn’t it be more practical to have it where you can use it? In your pocket? Forget an irresponsible individual and just think about the practicality that you’re for.

I give out practical advice.

If you’ve been following, you know I’m an avid investor and I like to put money to work. But I stand by my opinion that the regurgitation of these tax articles citing a thousand dollar refund as a great evil – it’s a load.

12% “since inception” – what does that even mean? Which market, when do you consider inception? The more widely cited number is closer to 8% and after an 80% runup from the pivot bottom in March 2009 which 2% GDP growth and 10% unemployment, you actually expect US equities to move 12% per annum from here? Now that’s bad advice. Aside from that, you miss the fact that you’re citing a 12% over a period of over a hundred years, which totally excludes near-term volatility (since we’re talking about a 1 year period). Don’t forget that there was a recent period where US equities lost 50% in that period of time. So, you take massive volatility with that shot at a high single digit return “on average” which is anything but guaranteed over short periods of time.

No basis? Even if we use present day money market funds of 1-2%, that’s still certainly better than 0%. Second, CD’s and money markets aren’t the only investment vehicle you should be investing in. How about your both IRA? The stock market since inception has an average of 12% annual growth rate. How about putting that extra money there? Compound interest is your friend. Also, your basis for giving the government a interest-free loan because of an individual being irresponsible is an irresponsible teaching method. We should be teaching to have an emergency fund as that is immediately accessible whereas your money with the IRS is not. Generally people who are irresponsible with there money who need the forced savings through the IRS won’t go fund their emergency fund or pay off debt; they typically use it to go buy more stuff and continue living beyond their means. Last but not least, you’re right that you may owe if you estimate wrong. However, you can simulate your return with any tax software that you use to already file your taxes. Let’s assume that’s even wrong just to take this deeper. As far as I know, there is no penalty for estimating wrong. You’ll just owe what you should have owed to begin with.

See the forest through the trees.

St. Patrick’s Day is Wednesday, but we start the week with a collection of tax bloggings that could be very valuable for many of us still working on our returns. Yes, the theme of our 67th Tax Carnival is A Pot of Tax Gold. These aren’t your typical …