Taxes Suck – Jake Long
"Can we claim the bunions on my feet as dependants?" Rose groaned as her husband shifted through the mountain of forms that they had picked up from the local IRS Office. It was tax time again, and the worse thing about this was they had about a week to do this, get it to the accountant's office so that he could look through it and file. If they didn't meet that deadline they'd be audited and they couldn't allow that to happen. So they'd suffer this.
Jake looked up from the papers and glared at his wife, "No, I'm pretty sure that those fucking little geeks at the IRS wouldn't like that. Last year they were pretty shitty about the fact that we had five dependants. The IRS doesn't like us that much anyway, so I don't want to test them with that."
"Jeeze, Jake, I was just kidding," Rose narrowed her eyes at her husband.
He smiled patiently at her, "I know that and I'm sorry I'm testy and all but I get testy with the taxes. When you've been audited three times, you get that way. How did you ever do this alone when you were in LA?"
Rose shrugged, "I didn't take any vacations, and I basically spent money on the necessities. I didn't even own a car until the last year that I was there."
"And how much did you have to pay?" Jake asked, he didn't look up from the form that he was eyeing. However, he was genuinely curious about it.
Again, the former Huntsgirl shrugged and began to shift through the neatly catalogued receipts that they kept. Rose was a bitch about organization and the neatly kept papers were a sign of that, "The first year I was there, I didn't really rack up anything taxable, I had to pay $2,500. The last time I had to pay taxes in California, I had to pay $2,000 in Federal Taxes and since I was a Public Servant of California, I got this nifty big ass tax credit where it lopped off $1,500 so I ended up paying only $1,000."
He looked up at her, "Were you ever audited?"
"Oh please," Rose smiled, "I always filed two months early."
"And are you sure you want to file this jointly?" Jake asked quietly.
This was the first year of their marriage that they were filing their Taxes Jointly. That meant two things: if they were audited, they'd both get sat on by the Government and if they made a mistake, both of them would go to prison. With Rose's job and certain income that they had received from a certain Huntsman, their income would be wacky. Rose offered her husband a smile, "Yes, I'm finally ready to take the risk of your shoddy accounting."
"Thanks baby," Jake smiled and he began to read the first line, "Filing status, are we single? Married and filing separately, Married and filing jointly or are we a 'qualifying' widow?"
Rose's eyes widened, was this question real? "We're a 'qualifying' widow."
He stuck his tongue out at her, "Name of the dependants of the family?"
"David Jacob Long, Rachel Long, Daemon Long, Michael Long and Kailey Long, not to mention my left and right foot," Rose retorted dryly.
Jake rolled his eyes. At least she'd make taxes entertaining. "We claim 5 dependants, that's a $200 Credit make a note of that for later, okay?"
Rose nodded and wrote the exemption down on a tan pad, "Damn, that's a $1000 off already. I knew having sex with you would pay off one day."
He chuckled and moved to the next form, the dreaded W-2 form. That lovely form that bankrupted so many innocent people in the past was for income and benefits, "Seeing as you are the only thing in this family that currently has a job, it wants to know the official title of your employer, your tips, raises, wages/salary. Benefits, pension, insurance etcetera …"
"The United States Government," Rose leaned back in the chair and recited everything that she knew about her job, "I don't get any tips, who the hell would tip me anyway? I received a raise this year of $25,000 and my current salary along with that raise is $225,000. That's about it for cash."
When Jake finally finished writing that information down on the paper, he looked up to his wife and smiled, "They pay Federal Agents too much."
"Oh yeah, you try doing my job," She grinned and ran her hand through her hair, "My pension is about 50% of what I make, so that would be $112,500 a year once I retire. We'll deal with the benefits and that later."
Jake nodded and looked back to his wife, "Write this down: We have four trust funds set up in my name that total at about $25,000,000. I'm the Trustor on Alyssa and Johnny's money. That trust totals to about $5,000,000. The interest that we receive off of that money is $50,000 a month. Our combined income would total $275,000 a year. Sound good?"
"Yeah," Rose nodded and her hand was scribbling the numbers down, "That is our steady income, but what are we going to do about net worth. I know for a fact that New York Taxes Net Worth and Federal Security Bonds."
He shrugged, "That money is technically yours, so you know what-…"
Jake pushed the paper to Rose on the other side of the kitchen table and slammed the pen down on the paper, "-…it's your responsibility to do it."
Rose glared at her husband, "Fine, I'll fill it out our networth and do all the math by myself, how about you take your happy ass and get DJ for me?"
"Why?" Jake asked, why would she want to expose their child to this?
"Because he's smarter then you and he knows how to do this sort of thing, now go and do it!" She snapped and she began to scribble the numbers.
DJ followed his father into the kitchen and when he laid eyes on his mother writing things down on official Government Forms he winced, "Ouch, 1040 form. I didn't know that you guys were doing your taxes right now."
"Where did you learn to talk like that son? You're 16 years old," Jake looked at his son with a hint of amazement at his knowledge of these sort of things.
Rose looked up from the table with a bit of smirk, "He's my son Jake. I schmooze with him about my work. I think I can go to him for tax advice."
Jake snorted, "Ok DJ, since you are a regular 40 year old in a 16 year old's body. Can you help us with the state Taxes? They've always been bad."
DJ nodded, "Yeah, how much was your joint income?"
"$275,000 and the trusts in my name total to $220,000,000. I have bonds in my name that come out to $300,000,000," Rose said, writing her personal Tax history down on one of the other forms, "Your father has trusts on his name that come out to $30,000,000. Our total taxable gross networth and income comes to about $550,275,000, that's what we are right now."
DJ whistled, "This is going to be some heavy duty dividing and multiplying. Ok, 1040 line seven 'Divide disposable income by 36 and write it-…'
The former American Dragon's attention span was soon done away with by the inane financial talk that his wife and son came into and Jake gave up, they'd handle the taxes this year and if they needed him they could find him.
Jake rubbed his forehead and sighed, god, he needed a cigarette.
Two Months Later …
It had arrived rather unexpectedly, but Jake and Rose were ready to finally have their Tax Return. Their lawyer had expected it to be rather big and there was a big brainstorm on what they planned to do with it. Rose wanted a vacation to some Island where it would be just her, Jake and their kids and she'd have no worries from the CIA. Jake wanted to go on a cruise and dump the kids with Alyssa and Johnny, after much consideration, they reached an impasse and decided to do a few things with it, depending on the amount.
They'd dump the kids with Alyssa and Johnny and not give the kids any forewarning, they'd spend just enough money to get to a deserted island and stay there for a week and split the rest between the kids saving accounts. They'd need to be padded anyway for their future.
"Presenting your Federal Income Tax Return," Rachel smiled and waved her hand under the envelope as if she was on some sort of game show, "Made and brought to you by the United States Government. The amount is based on the grand accounting on one Rose Long and one DJ Long. No thanks however is given to the registered Head of the Household Jacob Long, he's an idiot."
Rose stood up from the kitchen table and reached into her pants pocket to withdraw a ten dollar bill from her pocket and hand it to her second born daughter. All of the kids laughed as Rose turned back to Jake and smiled sheepishly, "I'm sorry dear, I paid her to say that."
"Okay," He narrowed his eye playfully and turned back to their daughter, who was looking at them with humor in her brown eyes, "Rach, the check."
Rachel smiled and walked forward and handed it to her father. Jake winked at his daughter and began to tear the edge of the envelope. He grasped the end of the check and pulled it slowly out of the envelope. Jake smirked as he heard the Drumroll from his wife and kids and he pulled the check out of the envelope in one swift movement, "I see a check for $15,524 Dollars!"
Rose snatched the check out of her husband's hand and waved it to their cheering children, "I know what this calls for, it calls for dinner at Sizzler!"