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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2009 12:00:44 GMT
If you live in the USA and are a US citizen, today's date will certainly have significance to you. Today,4/15,is the deadline for filing your income with the Internal Revenue Service.
What about the rest of the world? I never gave it much thought until today as to how paying income tax works in other countries. Very curious to hear.
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Post by pookie on Apr 15, 2009 12:12:37 GMT
End of financial year is 30th June for personal income tax,must be lodged by October(I think,always lodge early by accountant)
I think business tax is March
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Post by gringalais on Apr 15, 2009 16:35:55 GMT
Here as an independent contractor I pay 10% on my income that has to be declared monthly. However, I get almost all of it back since income tax rates are low for all but the highest earners. I guess regular workers get it deducted from their checks, but I think the rate is lower. You do your declaration in April. You can do it all online. Then in May I will get my refund with interest. The main tax here is VAT, which is 19%.
I also have to declare in the US. I am exempt from income tax living abroand and earning less than the limit. In the past I had to pay Social Security at the self-employed rate, since the company I work for is in the US and informs the IRS. However, Chile and the US now have a Social Security agreement and I can put money into an individual retirement account here and then I don't have to pay in the US.
It was funny, I went to inquire about opening a retirement account recently. I had one in the '90s when I was here before, but took the money out when I left. I decided to go with the same company this time. They still had my information in the system and there was a bit of money in the account, not much, around US$150. I guess my last deduction from the job I had then didn't make it into the account before I made the withdrawal.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2009 17:19:12 GMT
In Louisiana we have a term,I believe French in derivation but carried over as a cultural colloquialism for what you describe(the $150.00). It's called lagniappe',a little something extra,like a baker's dozen.
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Post by bazfaz on Apr 15, 2009 20:43:13 GMT
The tax year in France is the calendar year. Our tax forms get sent out later every year. We haven't received ours for last year yet. When it comes in I collate our various bits of income and then we go in and see our local tax inspector. She greets us warmly and together we fill in our form. We need her not only because the form is incomprehensible but because some income comes in pounds from the UK and she works out what the tax authorities here decide is the official rate.
Last month she telephoned to say that she had at last cracked the code the social security people use to decide what foreigners should pay and she thought Mrs Faz had been paying too much. A miracle happened and we have received three years reimboursement.
There is a good tax inspector.
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Post by bazfaz on Apr 15, 2009 20:49:31 GMT
Oh, I am reminded of 20 years ago when my daughter was travelling round the US and in Chicago got work at Steppenwolf (a theatre company). Tax on her 3 months there was deducted and then she had to claim it back. The following year a tax form arrived at our house (in the UK) from the IRS for her. I looked at this thing the size of a novel in some astonishment. By an act of Congress they had to state how long it would take to collect the information and fill in the form. It was over 13 hours.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2009 15:31:16 GMT
Another quirk of French income tax is that it is not withheld from one's salary. This is very good for anybody who comes to work a year or so in France with no intention of ever returning legally, because it means that they will never pay income tax.
Now that lots of people are doing their income tax by internet, they keep delaying the filing date. I have heard rumors that it will be May 31st this year, but internet filers get up to an extra month.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 16, 2009 17:52:43 GMT
We use Turbo Tax software, and what used to take days now takes a couple hours. All the math is done automatically, and if you want to play with the numbers - married couples may file separately on the same return and divide up income and expenses in various ways - the software immediately calculates the effect on your tax liability or refund of doing it each way.
The good news is we are getting a refund. The bad news is that reason for the refund is that we overpaid our estimated taxes based on the previous year's finances, and the down markets mean our investments tanked and we made much less and therefore owed much less. But we will NOT receive interest for the government hanging onto our money for 6 months... However if we had underpaid by too much, we would be assessed a big penalty and interest on the amount of underpayment owed to the IRS.
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Post by hwinpp on Apr 17, 2009 4:43:26 GMT
My company pays my tax. No idea when or how much.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2009 6:35:10 GMT
I am paying 1200€ more tax this year than last, merely due to a technical error that I made. Grrrrr.
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Post by auntieannie on May 26, 2009 19:18:31 GMT
Happy traveller, how to describe swiss taxes?  |
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