It's Tax Day So Here's A 15 Minute Video Breaking Down How You've Been Screwing Up Your Taxes

YouTube – Looking forward to your tax refund? What if I told you that getting a refund is a major indicator that you’re doing them wrong? How do progressive taxes, withholdings, deductions, and credits all work? Let’s untangle the web together!

I watched this one yesterday to try to get myself psyched up to bang out some TurboTax and after seeing that it’s going viral on Reddit, figured it might be some helpful information to bring to your eyes (in fact, some people in the office didn’t even know you have to do taxes by today…we work in a very special place). And knowing as much as possible is big because the IRS is one of the worst and most onerous government organizations you could deal with.

I was audited a few years back from when I had my own company because my accountant at the time did some sort of carryover that was disallowed; I then spent the next 8 months navigating the system after the deal I brokered with an auditor and his manager — he told me it was a small mistake and any tax due would be as much as “a bad night out” — was totally discarded when they sent me a completely different report afterwards. When I followed up over the next few weeks, the auditor refused to let me speak to the manager I met with and told me if I didn’t accept the revised report he could “make it worse on me.” As I appealed that report with the IRS’s independent appeals agency (who was way more reasonable), the original auditor audited me for the following year at the same time, something my accountant tells me they do a lot to get leverage for a deal (and a situation I’m still dealing with, now another 14 months later, after they ignored my request for appeal on this one). It’s a horrifying and draconian process and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Tl;dr: The IRS fucking sucks and will fuck you over at every turn.

So you owe it to yourself to watch a video like this and fix your withholdings, take thorough accounting of what you’re spending money on that ultimately can be written off at the end of the year, make sure you’re getting every single dime accounted for that the government owes you because they will take everything you’ve busted your ass for without a single care in the world.

Conversely if this is too scary you could watch this pro-taxation child propaganda too, start from the ground up: