Luckily everyone has until Monday, April 18—rather than the customary April 15th—to file their taxes. Sure, many people (especially freelancers) are going to be cutting a giant check to Uncle Sam. But lots of people will be getting money back from the government. Here are some of the things you can buy with your newfound riches.
The White House website is celebrating Tax Day — which is actually three days later this year — by putting up a useful tool for those who don't know how federal tax receipts are divvied up among various spending programs. Once you've calculated them, just enter the amount of Social Security, Medicare and income taxes you're paying this year, and the "Federal Taxpayer Receipt" will show you how these sums are apportioned. For example: If you owe $5,000 in income taxes, $1,000,000 of that will go to the War in Libya. Wait a second, that doesn't add up... huh? Maybe you'll have better luck when you try.
Just in time for Tax Day, results from an important new poll have been released in order to make you feel worse about your finances than you already do. American Express Publishing and Harrison Group polled a bunch of rich people, and with the results have forecast a $26.6 billion increase in spending on "luxury items." Sounds like fun! How will this spending spree take shape among the upper class? According to the vice-chairman of Harrison Group, Jim Taylor:
Life is hard for former Real World cast member and current Wisconsin congressman Sean Duffy. Even with a $174,000 salary—three times the median Wisconsin income—the poor guy "struggles" to pay his bills. He drives a used minivan!
Two weeks after shooting a home invader dead with a pink .38-caliber gun, Florida beauty queen Meghan Brown is ready to cash in. The Daily reports that, in the days immediately after the shooting, Meghan "modeled thigh-high stockings and a black corset laced up with a hot pink ribbon—all while aiming a shiny pistol." Why, you ask?
Police in Pennsylvania say they found "54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, 8.5 prescription pills and $51.22" inside the vagina of one Karin Mackaliunas, 27, of Scranton. If this seems to you like a rather unwise place to keep one's heroin (or one's change, for that matter), know that Ms. Mackaliunas seems to have realized the same thing after only a brief period of time; she allegedly hid her contraband while being transported to the police station after being arrested for drug possession, but by the time she arrived at headquarters, it seems she was reconsidering her path of action:
Disney's latest animated movie (well, distributed by Disney, produced by Robert Zemeckis's now-defunct ImageMovers Digital) Mars Needs Moms opened this past weekend with receipts of around $6 million. Considering the movie cost between $150 and $175 million to make and release, this is a bomb on the scale of Cutthroat Island. Which is to say, it's a big, big bomb. So is this just some random fluke, or does it say something about a bigger trend? Some folks are saying it does.
During last night's Real Time, Bill Maher decried shows like Secret Millionaire—which he claims "try and put a happy ending on America's enormous wealth disparity"—in a rant against the glamorization/idolization of the rich by the poor.
Indian Congress leader Kanwar Singh Tanwar recently celebrated the marriage of his son (not the same son who was arrested for fleeing the scene of a deadly accident last summer) by inviting some 18,000 guests to a £14 million (roughly $22.7 million) celebration in Delhi. He's come under fire from members in his political party who have urged officials to live a little less ostentatiously while so many of their countrymen (and, y'know, constituents) struggle to survive. For his troubles, the groom's parents-in-law gave him a new helicopter.
Out of the pure goodness of his heart, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia today announced that he's giving out $10.7 billion worth of benefits to his subjects, including a streamlined housing loan process and 15 percent pay raise for government employees! The people of Saudi Arabia will be remain very happy and won't be inclined to complain about anything, ever! [BBC; AJE]
The New York Times interviewed a "noticeably" thinner Bernie Madoff in prison and, wouldn't you know it, he said that "unidentified banks and hedge funds were somehow 'complicit' in his elaborate fraud," and also this:
