Tax Time!

If you're using TurboTax to file your taxes this year, be aware that it has become a little more difficult to deduct Health Savings Account contributions from your gross income on Form 1040.

This comes from Inside Consumer-Directed Care, via AIS Health.com -

"Searching TurboTax’s help files, consultant and former White House health policy advisor Roy Ramthun found the answer — HSAs are addressed under 'misc. income' rather than 'misc. deductions.' 'I’m not sure why TurboTax would put it this way,' says Ramthun, of Silver Spring, Md.-based HSA Consulting Services. 'I would think it would be more obvious that it is ‘misc. deductions.'"

Down the Slippery Slope We Go

If you didn't see this coming, then you're not paying enough attention to the world around you.

Oxford researchers have recently proposed that a 17.5% tax be added to fatty foods, in an effort to reduce heart disease in the UK. Good thing they didn't propose that for the American colonies, or we'd have to kick their asses again, huh? Yeah, that's right England, don't even think about it.

The surprising fact that I learned was that such a tax already exist in Britain (I've now used UK, England, AND Britain! Am I talking about Wales or Scotland in any of this? Who knows?).

From Reuters online -

"The purchase tax is already levied on a small number of products such as potato crisps, ice cream, confectionery and chocolate biscuits, but most food is exempt."

I'm not sure if that was English, but I know what "ice cream" is, unless in England that actually means "milk shake". You get the point though.

"The move could save an estimated 3,200 lives in Britain each year, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health."

Even though the British Heart Foundation has rejected the proposal, the fact remains that this tax is already in place on other products! In the US and in Great Britain, taxes are used to dissuade all kinds of behavior (drinking, smoking, gas consumption). The thing is, where does it end?

Better Hurry

My brother and I just sent out our tax stuff today, including our respective HSA tax forms (Form 8889). As is typical, rather than making it as easy as possible for their customers, the health insurance companies and HSA banks just tell you that you need to talk to your tax advisor about how to file your HSA contributions (which offset your income taxes).

Both forms are on the IRS website.

The instructions on how to fill the form out are here.

The form itself is here.

The Taxman Returneth (Your Money)

CNNMoney.com has a simple, but good list of constructive uses for you income tax refund. It would probably be better to save the money than to go on vacation to Las Vegas.