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It’s the little things…

Derek — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:17:47 +0000

I’ve decided to start keeping a list. It will be a list of the little things about working in an office and in accounting that bring you joy. These are what sustain my sanity during busy season. So here we go:

Finishing off a sticky note pad so you can finally start a new one and change colors.
Having a tax return balance without any necessary rounding plugs.
Gummy fruit snacks.

Your turn, what sustains your sanity during buys season or in your office?

Bloodbath

Derek — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:31:42 +0000

If there’s one thing accountants are attached to, it’s their 10-key calculator*. Every once in a while you have to show them who’s boss.

This particular 10-key and I had to part ways back in September, I miss the guy! My new one and I don’t fight as much.

*To be completely honest, there are WAY more things this particular accountant is attached to on top of his 10-key.

The Office Hypothesis

David — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:17:57 +0000

When I enter a school for the first time, I found that the biggest predictor on student’s behavior seems to be the attitude of the school’s office staff. I first noticed this pattern at my previous job at Mad Science, where I went to various school to do classroom workshops and after school classes. Schools with warm, friendly, and helpful office staff seem to also have warm, friendly, and helpful teachers and students. When affronted with colder attitudes when I sign in at the front office I found the students tend to be less engaged and more cynical.

The same trend seems to be true now that I am a substitute teacher. Just this last week I worked at a local middle school. The office staff was awesome and neighboring teachers popped their heads in the door before the first period bell rang to see if I had any questions and where to find them if they needed anything. On the other hand a high school I’ve subbed at the office was disengaged, I was never visited by any other adult, and the students were just there in the room. Class size of 45 didn’t help either.

What I have not seen is a correlation between socioeconomic groups. Cold and welcoming school cultures seem to be well mixed in affluent and non-affluent neighborhoods. Parkrose and Gresham High Schools both have similar populations, but I would much rather sub at one of them over the other. What is a better predictor is if a middle school or a high school. Middle schools tend of have warmer and more welcoming cultures where high schools tend to feel like prisons.

Here is my office hypothesis: The attitude of the front office from the perspective of an outsider (or the receptionists for you business types) is strongly correlated to the overall culture of that school or business.

Busy Season Starts

Derek — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:13:10 +0000

Per an old coworker of mine, “Derek getting ready for a hard day’s work.”

Gaming the system with dependents

Derek — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:27:38 +0000

Is anyone else excited to do their taxes for 2011 or is it just me? I just got my W-2s! It cost David and I $747 to file our 2010 taxes. It’s the amount of federal refund we lost because we had to file separately.

It all has to do with income tax rates and exemptions and blah blah blah, no one likes that stuff as much as me.

This year, we have a trick! A “dependent” for tax purposes doesn’t have to be a child! Hell, it doesn’t have to even be a relative! Unfortunately it does have to be a human (no cats) and they has to pass certain tests to qualify.

We can’t be married for federal tax purposes but we can still combine our exemptions to game the system for a small advantage, if not for the full advantage that the married tax brackets would provide.

What do the numbers end up looking like? Given a rough projection, if we just file separate we’d lose out on about $2,200 worth of refund for 2011 compared to filing joint. Filing with the dependent claim, we only lose out on about $1,400! Huzzah! We’re losing, but less!

Unfortunately this trick is only going to work for 2011. Any other tricks people think they might know or be curious about?

The IRS, the “payroll” tax cut, and politics

Derek — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:44:29 +0000

I love when politics and tax come crashing into each other. Here’s a few recent ones:

A while back the IRS was facing a $2 billion dollar cut to their budget. The IRS commissioner, testifying before congress, pointed out that for every dollar of the IRS budget they collect roughly $200 in revenue.

But we don’t like tax revenues anyway right? Not only do we hate taxes in general, but we also love the recent “Payroll” tax cut that just got a little two months extension.

Here’s the thing… the “payroll” tax cut is a Social Security (SS) tax cut. Social Security was traditionally funded by a 12.4% tax on the first $100,000 or so of wages, paid 50% by the employer and 50% by the employee. Now it’s funded by a 10.4% tax because they reduced the employee-paid portion by 2%. Oh, that’s coupled with a 3.6% increase in SS benefits paid to recipients for 2012, the first increase since 2009 (before the payroll tax cut). So they’re funding it less, paying out more, and I guess the market makes up the difference? That part is beyond me.

The tax cut means more money in the pockets of everyone who gets a W-2 including myself, that’s all well and good. I’ve got nothing against that. I’m just excited to see what happens when SS rears it’s ugly head into politics again because it’s a “broken and bankrupt system” that needs to be reformed or privatized or something. Will any politician get asked “Didn’t you vote for the payroll tax cut in 2011 and 2012 that further cut funding to SS and perpetuated it’s problems?” Think it’ll happen?

The last fun fact, and this is my favorite, The IRS is more popular than congress.

Do teachers get paid alot? A reddit conversation

David — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:01:04 +0000

Them:

“Teaching is certainly one of the most underpaid jobs.”

Median teacher’s salary in my state is 60k for working 3/4′s of a year.

Me:

Why the downvotes? It is a factual statement. There are a couple of things to point out though. Many states the pay schedule is done by district, not by state. A teacher’s pay is determined by the number of years teaching and, essentially, the number of collage credits they have. How does that point on the pay schedule compare to other professions for the same experience and education (factoring for 3/4 of the year of course).

There are also cost of living factors to consider as well. One or two large cities with a high cost of living can inflate the median above the point you are trying to make. That is why look per city is much more effective than per state.

And there is always this classic, but flawed, example. If I was paid as a baby sitter in Oregon (min wage per student. I’ll use one of the worse schools I subed at where the teacher had 40 kids in each class): $8.80 * 8 hrs/day * 40 students * 180 employed days = $506,880