1678 Pound Town.

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I’m sure that someone else must have thought of this pun before I did, but one is as good as another really and I didn’t particularly want to spend ages picking out a pun. This one was new to me and it made me laugh so it’s the one I used. Very little of the dynamic of the relationship between these two has be shown so I wanted to break up the coffee shop stuff with a little of them. I expect that they enjoy work a lot more when they are in the store together.

I gotta get my taxes done tomorrow. I wasn’t going to go to H&R Block because they are really expensive but my options are limited. I should have just taken care of it myself already but in typical fashion I just let this happen to me again this year. Next year though I really need to get ahead of things because $300 is insane for a service that isn’t getting me any write offs at all. That’s the whole advertising earnings from the ads for over a month. My parent’s accountant doesn’t charge that much and they have a legit complex tax return. They advertise $80 bucks online so I don’t know why it’s so much more expensive when you go into the fucking place. Basically my lack of diligence is getting me fucked as per usual.

I don’t fully understand why my taxes are so high in general. I need the tax secrets of the rich so I don’t have to pay them anymore. They keep them away from the scrubs though. I want to be rich enough that laws no longer apply to me. Or only apply in an abstract way, like with the president. Maybe if I made the comic a company, and became the only shareholder, I could stop paying income tax and just pay capital gains tax. I wonder if that would be less. If only I understood the black arts of tax law. My ignorance is hindering my desire to be above the law itself!

Anyway, the Discord server for Between Failures ended up becoming pretty active. if you want to join, and chat with like minded readers, the link is these words. Everyone seems to be having a good time so far.

61 Comments

FYI, there’s already a Pound Land in the UK.

XD That sounds less sexual than pound town for some reason.

I think it’s because “Pound Lake” sounds a bit like “Pound Cake” and thus is more reminiscent of dessert pick nick than a place where people go to have sex. Also, the name kinda makes me picture the lake as very small. Maybe because “pound” and “pond” sound similar, so I’m thinking “pond lake” which seems redundant?

I guess you could insert “huge tracts of” in the middle … and end up with a place to buy necklaces?

There’s a resort in England called Sandy balls

Is the beach called “Sandy Cheeks”?

My hometown has Penistone Road and Butthole Lane.

There is a real town, named- Coxsackie, New York.

[My apologies to the people from there, for bringing that up]. Golly.

One of the stops on the TTC subway system is coxwell.

There’s a Fangboner drive somewhere in the northeast I think

In Yorkshire, England, we have a village called Wetwang. I grew up in the South of England near a village called Pratt’s Bottom.

Y’all know there’s a map of “offensive” British place-names, don’t ya?

Personally, I’ve driven through Upper Dicker. It’s the most horrifyingly pristine and sleepy village you can imagine. It’s like they’re trying to compensate for the name! ;) I do think there’s a prison nearby though, possibly between it and Lower Dicker…

When you need plates and bowls but you’re out of money
you can always go – to Pound Town.
Knock of toys and greeting cards in a hurry,
We’re here to help at Pound Town.

Listen to the Muzak and the overhead lights may be dirty
But our shelves are all full of books and mags that are wordy
How can you lose?
The prices are lower here
You can get all your wares and let go of your cares

So go to Pound Town,
Things will be cheap when you shop at – Pound Town!
No lower price for sure at Pound Town!
Everything’s waiting for you.

God, I hear ya with the H&R block thing. They hit me for ~$300 as well. After this year I’m switching to something else. I’ve never seen anything that justifies the price. You’d think it’s their “protection”, but then that costs extra ON TOP OF THAT. Ugh….

I’d never noticed that double entendre before and my town is full of pound shops (because it’s super classy). Good work Jackie!

Turbo tax is way cheaper than $300; at least for my tax needs. Granted, I could just go grab a 1040EZ and self file for free since my taxes are pretty simple, but that is less convenient.

When I was a young teen (~12-13) my math teacher decided to do a unit with us on filling out your tax forms. Of course it didn’t go into itemized deductions, education credits, etc – just the simple form. Ever since then I’ve done my own taxes and never had an issue – except when I made a simple arithmetic error (equivalent to adding 2 + 2 and getting 5).

If you have complicated taxes or need to do a Schedule C for a home business, I really don’t understand why people don’t do their own taxes. I guess they are just intimidated by the IDEA of doing taxes. I mean if a 13 year old kid can fill out a 1040EZ, why can’t someone who is 20+ do their own taxes. If you are paranoid, spend a few bucks to get TurboTax or the equivalent…

The fear of math, and based on a lot of this bookface quizzes coming across my feed lately, rightly so. People seem to have no grasp of simple addition and subtraction or basic logic.

This is why so many cashier terminals count out the change automatically.
Mind, you should count your change because some retailers do like to shortchange people with those. Why? Most people cant count out the change themselves either.

Some people don’t bother to do their own taxes because professional accountants can help them find extra details and credits to help maximize a greater return for them than they could possibly hope to do so themselves. Not everyone has a hawk eye for little details like accountants.

Convenience > all.

It’s the driving force behind civilization. Sure, I could walk outside, grab a stick, sharpen it, and go hunting for my next meal the hard way….

…but a rifle + hunting blind or a grocery store trip is far more convenient.

The tax secrets of the rich are simply that they are a pack of assholes who do not care about their fellow citizens and thus have no intention of any of their money being used to care for the needs of others. They illegally, often with legislated help from their shills in government, hide their money in foreign accounts. I hope they choke on their dollars.

Bitter much?

Point of order: if “they” are doing something “with legislated help,” it’s not likely to be illegal. Immoral, yes. Illegal, no.

I’ve lived my life on the cutting edge of the poverty line (usually below it). And let me tell you that when I earn some money I want to keep it, not give it away to some bureaucrat who’s gonna keep most of it and give the rest to enable some whiney little brat with an entitlement complex. My guess is that you feel the same way. So why do you imagine that someone who makes the sacrifices necessary to earn a lot of money would feel any different (if not more so)?

Sure, they squirrel some money away in offshore accounts. You would, too, if you could. But they also earn deductions through the usual means: charitable donations and business losses. Which means they’re choosing which whiney little brats get their money; not leaving it to some bureaucrat. Just because they aren’t paying taxes doesn’t necessarily mean they’re getting to keep all their money.

If by sacrifices you mean laying off the locals, closing plants and subcontracting to a third world country, all while jacking up the end user price, then sure they are making sacrifices.

The self made from penniless to the 1% is a fleeting teeny tiny minority among the elite rich.

Nuff said. The world is dysfunctional since most people with any say on the matter are dysfunctional.

Amen. There is too much of an income inequality gap to just brush off here which WON’T change under the current economic system.

I hear ya about H&R Block, my mom paid 400 in 2014 to those shysters. So she went to a firm my dad used to use and they charged 1300 and she had to pay penalties because they didn’t complete her return until Nov, costing her an extra 557 dollars. Grrrr.

my brother and I did her return this year, using the previous year as a guide (nothing really changed). and we split the 1300 we charged her. J/K. I mailed it today.

fucking accountants. And I went to school for accounting, too. Hated it with a passion but it was supposed to be recession/layoff proof. Wrong. All those years of night school for fucking nothing.

My general advice:

If you make less than $150,000 (which covers most of us – it certainly covers me) your return is probably not complex enough to pay someone to do it for you.

And even then, others will pay someone to do it. Sometimes, it can be a positive thing as doing taxes yourself will leave you prone to overlooking additional tax credit claims to help maximize your return unless you have the eyes of a hawk.

Great pun, Jo! You earned that soda. ;)

Regarding taxes, TaxCut or TurboTax are reasonably priced ($30-40 generally, but can be as low as $15 as a download; check Amazon), comprehensive and easy to use for the most part, and after using one or the other for over ten years I’ve never had an issue with my (admittedly) simple tax return. Also, there is no charge to file, whether with paper forms or e-file, so the only cost to you is buying the software. As far as deductions go, the two biggest items would be contributing to a retirement or health savings plan (IRA, 401k, HSA, etc.) or claiming mortgage payments for your home. Additionally, if you are paying off student loans, the interest is deductible.

My guess is that you do not feel comfortable opening a Traditional IRA account since your budget is so tight, but if it’s possible/affordable, you might want to consider it for the future, and you can likely do so at your current bank or credit union. The nice thing about using tax software is that you can plug-in contribution amounts incrementally and see what the calculated the savings would be at each dollar value. Keep in mind that it is not a dollar-for-dollar deduction, so it’s probably not something you can do as a lump sum this close to the filing deadline unless you have savings available. Still, it’s the easiest way (that I know of) to reduce your tax burden when filing as a single household. I’m not a tax professional though, so I’d seek advice before making any changes.

Same here – different jurisdiction and tax codes but similar nonetheless.
Ever a procrastinator like myself, I have become organized enough to keep all my receipts in one place and then spend one afternoon sorting things out.
I then fire up the software, enter all the numbers, verify all the hints and warnings, efile and then put all the relevant documents I used in a manila envelope, label it for the tax year, and drop it into the file cabinet to be forgotten till the next year.
Everything else is already sorted so it also gets filed where appropriate.
Usually the shredder and then the blue bin or feed stock for Papier Mâché.

Grab HnR Block from amazon. It’s cheap there I only spent 30 bucks for the software when it’s on sale.

Substitution! The word tax for that town in Newfoundland, ‘Dildo’ and everything becomes funnier. Claim it’s a religious thing and let the laughter ensue.

There are tons of discount stores in Britain with Pound in the name, but I don’t *think* I’ve ever *actually* seen “Pound Town”! :D

There was one, for a time. I worked next door to it when I was doing covid testing. None of my colleagues found it amusing. Even with the tagline under it that read “try it, you may like it” ?

P.s. I have photographic proof of its existence

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