Summary of my public education

Why the hell do you think people pay accountants and tax lawyers? You can do your taxes correctly and legally more than one way. If you do them one way you might owe money, but doing them another might make you be owed money. Depending on how your life is- sometimes it’s better to owe money on one years taxes because you can get a big benefit from that later. Taxes are as simple or complex as we want to get with countless possible scenarios and life choices impacting them. And here’s a surprise! IF YOU DONT OWE MONEY YOU DONT EVEB ACTUALLY HAVE TO DO FEDERAL TAXES. You can float them pretty much forever or do them later years. You can even redo past tax years retro actively and apply things that happen in the future to the past and vice versa as it favors you best!

“Taxes” are both REALLY simple and REALLY complex. School can’t teach you the “best” way or even all the ways to do your taxes. Students go to college for 4-8 years to learn about taxes and graduate as rookies because experience teaches them how to actually apply what they learned best in each case and ability determines how well they do at it. So do you seriously want school to sit there and teach you to go online, google “IRS tax forms” look for the ones that apply to you, and follow directions? After many decades of taxes I don’t know how to do them. If you asked me to tell you I’d say “I don’t memorize the damn thing. I do it once a year. Follow the directions or just get turbo tax or hire an accountant.” You’ll be hard pressed to find an adult who can give you a step by step process because 99% of adults just do tone of those things and don’t actually memorize how to fill the damn things out.

On to: MEDICAL CARE. Similar to taxes- there’s not a lot to teach that you shouldn’t already know, and there isn’t a single answer on any facet. The answer is: get the best care you can afford, or get the maximum care you think you’ll need. Someone with asthma or psoriasis I or a history of heath issues or hereditary problems will need a different plan than someone else. A person who engages in risky hobbies might also need a different plan. Do you travel a lot? Out of network coverage or flexibility, lower costs for air lifts and transport might be more important to you than excellent coverage at only a few locations. I mean- it’s common sense. The terms used are usually in the literature from the company like what “co pay” means or “qualifying event” “out of pocket maximum” and so on. And there’s still Google.

Lord forbid that on your own time out of school you have to invest your precious time in your own life. But... once you graduate that is life. No one feeding you answers, telling you how to solve that problem at work or get that promotion or how to choose between jobs or who you should date or marry or if you should have kids or move. You make the damn decisions and you enjoy the rewards or deal with the consequences. That’s life, and expecting someone to give you a freaking cheat sheet so you don’t have to put any effort into it yourself is naive. What separates those who achieve from those who do not- if all other factors being equal- is how we navigate life and solve the issues in front of us. Figuring out basic shit like taxes is the simplest welcome lesson to real life.

If you are concerned about how “school never taught me anything for real life...” no. It did. What they didn’t teach you is part of the lesson. They didn’t teach you the things that you can easily figure out yourself, the things that the process of figuring out helps you grow and gives you the best skills for being a successful adult. If you flip burgers or stock shelves for minimum wage someone will tell you every little instruction in detail. If you build, design, manage, or do almost anything that pays decent you will be the one who has problems that you’re expected to solve. The better you are at solving these problems the bigger problems you’ll be given to solve. I wouldn’t trust a Dr. or Lawyer or plumber who can’t figure out how to get their taxes done. As an adult- be an adult. Figure it out and stop whining that no one taught you to wipe right and you’ve had brown panties for 10 years because you never realized you weren’t supposed to walk around in your own poopy.

not sure if people are downvoting you because they don't like what you're saying or they don't like that you're saying it

Probably a little of both. And then there’s at least a few people who just down vote things I post because I post them. I’d be probably be mad at life too if I lacked the ability to figure out how to do taxes though or found it some huge challenge, so I can’t say much.

Some may also be downvoting because of the wall of text.

Also a possible reason as well- although mostly synonymous with downvoting whatever I post- since whatever I post has a tendency to be a wall of text.