Optomist Deductions: Skip To Line 6
April 13, 2010 7:42 AM   Subscribe

 
Would I have to be marginally employed to find this amusing?
posted by Doohickie at 7:45 AM on April 13, 2010


OMG, conservatives have infiltrated the New York Times!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:49 AM on April 13, 2010


Too bad this wasn't in the style section; then we would have known being marginally employed was no longer in fashion.
posted by munchingzombie at 7:58 AM on April 13, 2010


Wow, that twitter/jonasbrothers/hottubtimemachine formula was is made completely of keywordsmeansfunnyrightRIGHT?.
posted by DU at 8:05 AM on April 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


$10.79 for every footnote? I'm rich1!

1Not really, but I did generate a surprising number of footnotes in 2009.
posted by adamrice at 8:06 AM on April 13, 2010


as a Marginally Employed American, I found this hit quite close to home/office.

MEA culpa
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:08 AM on April 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


This is nothing. The tax form for a regularly employed person is dozens of pages long, is far more complicated, makes far less sense, and all the jokes are real.
posted by three blind mice at 8:12 AM on April 13, 2010 [6 favorites]


I love coffee but I'd sooner be caught dead than tweet about it.
posted by blucevalo at 8:13 AM on April 13, 2010


"If you have health insurance you do not count as a freelancer and cannot use this form."

That's a little too true.
posted by Michael Roberts at 8:23 AM on April 13, 2010 [2 favorites]


Doing my taxes this year (and by doing, I mean sitting on the couch in our home office watching my wife prepare it using Turbo Tax) and noting all the ponderous steps that a joint filing requires, I had a bit of nostalgia for the early 00s when I could file my 1040EZ online in less than 7 minutes.

Oh, the 1040EZ. Back when I had one single place of employment for a solid fiscal year, no investments, was single, etc., I did my taxes in five minutes on a single side of a single piece of paper and went 'Why do people complain about this? It's like a worksheet from fourth grade!'

And then I started freelancing on the side, paying loans, I got married, my wife freelances full-time, and our kitchen table is covered an inch deep with piles of tax-related documents.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:27 AM on April 13, 2010


OMG, conservatives have infiltrated the New York Times!

I know this is a joke, but has anyone else noticed how many commenters on the NY Times site are conservatives and Tea Partier-types posting all kinds of weird comments about how Obama is a socialist and "we need to take the country back" type stuff. It looks like the Tea Party ppl are actually reading a lot of the Times now. Not that the Gray Lady couldn't use the readership, but there appears to be a mass movement of posting comments that call Obama a socialist. Unemployed Tea Baggers making the rounds on the web? Or did someone tell them to post as many comments as possible to these articles to make it appear like their view is mainstream?
posted by anniecat at 8:27 AM on April 13, 2010


Do they have a version for corporations? At this rate the New York Times is going to need one soon.
posted by loquacious at 8:28 AM on April 13, 2010 [2 favorites]


Or did someone tell them to post as many comments as possible to these articles to make it appear like their view is mainstream?

I think these articles tend to be the ones linked on Drudge or Michelle Malkin or whathaveyou.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:29 AM on April 13, 2010


I know this is a joke, but has anyone else noticed how many commenters on the NY Times site are conservatives and Tea Partier-types posting all kinds of weird comments about how Obama is a socialist and "we need to take the country back" type stuff.

They post everywhere, including the LA Times (angry socialist-haters from Tustin and Riverside and Murrieta), the SF Chronicle (righteously livid Tea Partiers from Brentwood, Livermore, and out of state), and all major newspapers on both coasts and in between. Which is why it's a net benefit for maintaining good mental health to avoid comments sections.
posted by blucevalo at 8:37 AM on April 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


Unemployed Tea Baggers making the rounds on the web?

I'm suspecting astroturf. They're freelance fiction or fantasy writers who found something that pays well.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:50 AM on April 13, 2010


>>If you have health insurance you do not count as a freelancer and cannot use this form.

>That's a little too true.

Hey now, some of us have spouses with real jobs.
posted by stet at 9:17 AM on April 13, 2010


three blind mice : This is nothing. The tax form for a regularly employed person is dozens of pages long, is far more complicated, makes far less sense, and all the jokes are real.

I'll agree about the jokes, but dozens of pages?

I have regular income (1040, M), self-employment income (CEZ and SE), trade stocks (D, D1), itemized deductions because of mortgage interest and non-cash donations (A, 8283), and got laid off so have 401k contributions I can claim (8880). Plus my state's 1040.

And all that only came out to 10 pages total.

I can't imagine the average filer having even that much (a few niche industries and charitable org employees, perhaps) - Perhaps half of what I mentioned - No CEZ, no SE, no 8880, no D or D1, and even the 8283 I'd consider less than typical.

Hell, for that matter, I expect the single most common category of filer (interpreting "average" as "mode") has a 1040EZ for both fed and state, and nothing more.

/ IANATA,CA, or FA
posted by pla at 10:19 AM on April 13, 2010


Boy I sure do miss being under-employed...
posted by Mister_A at 10:47 AM on April 13, 2010


I'll agree about the jokes, but dozens of pages?

The return I just got from the accountant[1] was 12 pages long, so that's _a_ dozen. heh.

[1] What? People do their own taxes? The horror!
posted by madajb at 12:38 PM on April 13, 2010


It should be easy enough to do your taxes that every American with an 8th-grade education should be able to do it themselves. Unfortunately, it's not.

Three cheers for Making Work Pay, though ... I guess?
posted by mrgrimm at 1:06 PM on April 13, 2010


"Your Food Blog
Your Other Food Blog"

Ouch. Touché.
posted by LMGM at 2:53 PM on April 13, 2010


No Link Snark Comment
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 5:33 PM on April 13, 2010


I read the whole thing without so much as a giggle and then got to the footnote and cracked up. Apparently DFW jokes never get old to me.
posted by naoko at 7:41 PM on April 13, 2010


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