We should all hire the tax folks over at GE

This time of year, hurrying to gather all the necessary information in order to pay our taxes is enough to (borrowing my mother’s favorite expression) “try the patience of a saint.” This chore, which Val formerly handled, is not only time consuming, it is also emotionally upsetting.

As I come face to face with where all the money went, I can be heard to mutter aloud in a decidedly unsaintly manner. To add insult to injury, The New York Times had a front page article about General Electric, which this year, despite record American profits, is paying no American taxes at all. In fact, they have a tax benefit coming of 3.2 billion.

Now, I think I have a pretty sharp accountant to whom I pay a goodly sum to do the tax paperwork, but obviously, he is not in the same class as the GE bunch who number former government officials, some of whom wrote the tax codes. GE’s tax department has been called, “the world’s best tax law firm.”

General Electric has fiercely lobbied for tax breaks and innovative accounting so it can concentrate its profits offshore.

Much of my tax advice is from books with encouraging titles like, “If I’m So Smart, Where Did My Money Go?” and “Personal Finance for Dummies.” Reading them, I belatedly learn that we have done a lot of things wrong. For instance, we didn’t set aside 25 percent of our income toward these golden years. Somehow, we frittered our income away on feeding, clothing, entertaining and educating three children.

We moved many times, and although I always picked up various jobs along the way, I was never employed long enough to establish pension rights. On the plus side, I did put some money in a 401(k), never took my Social Security until I was 65 and have continued adding to it since I am still working, well past the anticipated age for gainful employment.

One big mistake most of us have made, along with many so-called “money experts,” is miscalculating the rate of inflation. Who could have foreseen that I now spend as much at the supermarket to feed Val and myself as I formerly spent for a family of five? Even the cost of feeding and caring for our two cats has increased. In an effort to save, I’ve been hoisting the 25-pound litter bags into the car, exhausting myself and threatening the cats with having to tote their own litter home if they misbehave and miss the kitty box.

One of my help books advises that you can compensate for higher prices by cutting back and making substitutions: for example, driving a less-expensive car or eating fewer restaurant meals. My Toyota already has more than 130,000 miles on it, and when I look at expenditures, it isn’t a few restaurant meals that are worrisome; it is the real estate taxes, the heating bills, medical expenses and the price of gas. And as the same book concludes, “Some cutting back reduces your standard of living, and you can only cut out so much.”

Medicare and VA benefits are sure a blessing, although some knuckleheads in Congress are determined to balance the budget by cutting health care for seniors, so that’s a slippery slope for the future. I can, at least, skip all the information on “estate planning and trusts for the children.” Our kids are already alerted to the fact that Mom and Dad are spending their inheritance now on such wildly extravagant items as a roof over our graying heads and three squares a day.

Next year, I must remember to ask the accountant if I can move our residence “offshore” somewhere and let GE make up the tax differential.

Contact Jean Cherni, founder of the retirement advisory service, Senior Living Solutions, at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 15 The Ponds at Hotchkiss Grove, Branford 06405.

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