(and get a pat on the back for doing it) – PLUS SOME MODEST PROPOSALS
Tax Day is about a week away, and a lot of people who owe Phoenix money have put off doing their taxes until the last days. This article is not intended as tax advice, but is about how to put your money to good use directly, and not via the convoluted processes of State Government. It won’t save you money, but lets you put it to uses of your choice.
For instance, and dealing only with individual income taxes, if you are well-off enough to have a taxable income of $50,000 after standard exemptions and either standard or itemized deductions, the tax table shows that you owe the Arizona Dept. of Revenue $1525 if you are single, or $1379 if you are married filing jointly. If you use the state’s own rules you can send very few or even zero dollars to Phoenix if you act before April 17. It’s called Tax Credits, dollar-for-dollar reductions of your tax owed.
How you do it is by donating to a listed charitable organization (using Form 321), to a listed foster care provider (Form 352), or to a school. For those lists, click here. Schools may be public (Form 322) or private (Form 323). The recipient provides receipts to be filed with your tax return.
There are charity maximums that may be claimed, $400 for single taxpayers, plus $500 for foster care donations; $800 for joint filers, plus $1000 for foster care. School maximums are set at $200 single and $400 joint. That’s up to $2200 in credits in just three categories for couples filing jointly. If you donate more than you owe in taxes, you can carry the excess amount over and use it next year. Note that you must also fill in Form 301 pursuant to the Proliferation of Paperwork Act; that tells them which credits you are claiming.
There are nearly 900 listed charitable organizations and you may donate to as many, or as few, as you like. Note that Planned Parenthood was removed from the list in 2011 under anti-choice pressure. There are over 40 foster care organizations which could all use some help taking care of those unwanted kids the anti-choice crowd has welcomed into the world.
Now, with nearly 900 charitable organizations of all stripes and causes eligible for your tax credit donations, perhaps it’s time to add some more. This may be the solution to Pima County’s road repair issues: charitable contributions going directly to road repairs. A special collection could be made of those hundreds of county bureaucrats making over $100,000 annually. Instead of United Way, it might be called Untied Hiways. To keep non-repair administrative expenses down, a half-day’s daily labor filling potholes to be donated by everyone with a title above the rank of worker bee in the county administrator’s office, the communications office, the county attorney’s office, the assessor’s office, the economic development office and any other top-heavy department.
And the Board of Supervisors, instead of a “Pause for Paws” to get dogs adopted at their meetings, could offer themselves as adoptive work partners for people volunteering to fill potholes in their district. If they can’t do the physical labor, they could at least serve lunch. Pork Barrel Sandwiches or reheated Swamp Stew. Yum.
But seriously now, how could a road repair tax credit work? First, instead of Pima County spending over a million dollars to acquire and remediate the failed Canoa Hills Golf Course from Steve Christy supporter Morgan North, that money could be seed money for new road repair business start-ups based in communities. Real working people and not the usual cronies, maybe even non-profits who want to put unemployed people to work. With Finchem and Ducey keeping Rio Nuevo in business, it would be appropriate for them to match that amount, or better it, since road repair everywhere can only help downtown revitalization by making car travel easier. Rio Nuevo funds, since they are exempt from the state’s prohibition on “gifts,” could help rural communities like Picture Rocks where the dirt roads are technically easements and not county-maintained.
The state could then list those companies as eligible for road repair tax credits, just as they do now for charitable contributions. Like charities, donations would reduce state taxes owed dollar-for-dollar, so people could direct their money to their own communities for road repairs, bypassing the state and county bureaucracies. And because the repair companies would be community-based, they can be held immediately accountable by their neighbors if they fail to do the job.
It ain’t rocket science. It could, of course, lead to shortfalls in state budget projections if people redirected most or all of their tax dollars to local road repairs, but the Arizona Dept. of Transportation could always cut unnecessary projects like the multi-billion dollar Interstate 11, or the Sonoran Corridor to provide a free access highway to a Don Diamond development. Imagine how the $15 million for the current I-11 study could have been better used! Should we mention that Supervisor Steve Christy – he of the Canoa Hills Golf Course caper – was chair of the ADOT’s State Transportation Board when that study was approved?
Can you spell C-R-O-N-Y?