Taxes

I am doing our taxes this weekend.It makes me SICK!
Itemizing sucks.I have no idea why people say you get more out of your taxes when you buy a house.NOT!Standard deduction is still the better "deal".
There is a thing on the tax form called "DC first time home buyers credit",as it turns out it is only for the folks in DC.Great.....none for us in GA.There used to be a section on your tax form that let you write off home improvement costs.No longer there.
Then there is the unemployment compensation.....because we paid no tax out of it (which would have been 300 Dollars a week minus 20% taxes) they screw us now with it.Not only because we haven't paid taxes on it but also because we did not pay any of it back!WTF??We didn't know it was a fraggin' loan!No one,not even the department of labor EVER said we have to pay it back.
So you learn new things every year when you do your taxes.We also learned this year that you better NOT itemize because then you have to report it next year as income,in case you had a refund because of itemizing.If you use standard deduction and have a refund you DON'T have to report it.
The government fucks with your money,period.And then there are people out there that want the government to take it ALL over and take care of them!Yeah right.....they'll take care of you alright!
On the bright side......there is a section for "educator expenses" and since we home school we qualify for that section.In this case its a write off your total gross income and does not fall under itemizing.You can take off 250 per "teacher" which gives you a 40 dollar extra refund.Yehaaw!