infuriatedI'm trying my best not to get pissed right now, but it's not working too well. For the first time in over 10 years i'm filing my tax with someone else involved. The last time was when i was 20 and my mom claimed my medical expenses for that year as a deduction for her. Which i explicitly agreed to because she did actually pay my medical expenses, and i was still under 21 (the maximum age). In Canada there are a shitload more deductions and tax credits available, and J's parents want to cash in.
J has never done her own tax. I've done mine since i was 18. There's already a huge cultural gap there. Since we are filing as a married couple for the first time, i bought a tax program and we went through it together a week or two back. At every step the program found more and more bullshit deductions and credits it could apply to me due to us living as a couple. J earned next to nothing last year and i had no tax withheld due to being self-employed, so all those deductions and credits knocked my tax bill from over a grand down to a couple hundred. As usual, i feel a little guilty claiming deductions and credits because i think the whole concept sucks, but that's a political thing, whatever. It doesn't mean i'm going to sacrifice mine for someone else.
J's dad is now terribly upset with me that i didn't apply one of J's tax credits to him instead of to me. For him it would have been "several thousand dollars", whereas for me it just helped a bit toward my bill. It makes me furious that he feels entitled to a child's credit when that "child" is 27 years old and supposedly living her own adult life with her spouse. It makes me even more furious that there even exists such a ridiculous law that parents and grandparents (!) can claim credits from their children in perpetuity. Now he's blaming me for not doing our taxes correctly, when in reality i just don't give a shit. I'm the primary family member, not him. And besides, adults should not be tied to their parents this way, it's fucking criminal.
I am so sick of constantly having her family pulled into shit that's none of their business. Now i need to have some stupid fucking showdown over money - money, for fuck's sake! If i'd known getting married meant having to fuck with my taxes this much... Jesus Christ, i'd rather do my taxes as an individual and pay the whole bill. I am so pissed right now.
However, I am all for deductions for a lot of things, mostly the things that only apply to people like you who are legitimately poor.
This particular tax credit is because J is studying. I guess it's to encourage parents to pay for their child's education no matter how old the child is, but still.
although i have to admit, if J's parents are paying her tuition, that should be their right-off, but that may not apply up there.