Taxes 101, (a simple explanation of a complex system)

This article was written by Greg, the better looking Money Viking :)

It is that time a year again, tax time is upon us. There are hundreds of strategies and approaches people deploy. Some people like getting a big refund as a kind of savings bonus, others want to break even because they do not want the government borrowing their money all year long. Remember it could have been invested for you all year making you money. I want to lay out a very simple way that one can think about taxes to develop an effective strategy. This is a taxes 101 that I wish someone had taught me a long time ago. Again, our education system never talks about this stuff and it is so important to us personally and for our country. It is important to pay our fair share and no more. Someone has to pay for defense, roads, food inspection, research, bio-defense, infrastructure, social security, etc.