Happy tax day!

I have bitched about the US approach to sales tax already (even the sales assistants don't know how much something is going to cost until they ring it up?? And then they look all incredulous when you suggest that seeing as they are selling the item they should probably know the key facts about it, like how much its actually going to cost me??) and I have another tax-related winge brewing.

The US is apparently a land of rich people (who hire accountants) and poor people who are fucked. This plays out nicely at tax time when you have to submit a variety of exciting forms to the IRS, having worked out whether you have paid too much or too little tax. Thankfully we had help, because it is all the more complicated if you've moved house/got married/got a new job/are not from round these parts/aren't allowed to work (all of the above). And having collected and collated all this very valuable information about our lives we then stick it in an ENVELOPE and POST it to another human to READ IT and check it and SEND US A CHEQUE?....

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A few issues here:
1. How is this process not totally automated? Its fucking archaic! I appreciate that our situation is not 'normal' but no-one is normal, and there are plenty of people (certainly in Northern Cali) who are in the same position as us, so an automated system should be able to handle our situation.
2. I have to trust the USPS (which has not done me any favours in the past) with this delicate information and then wait 4-8 weeks to hear anything back?? So we won't know if there's anything amiss for 2 months. Epic.*
3. Why am I doing this anyway? In the UK the government uses all those lovely employees to calculate this stuff. I don't have to understand the tax system - someone else is paid to do that for me.

Now, perhaps its not a good thing that UK residents don't fully understand all the intricacies of the tax system because we are then surprised and horrified when we realise that some rich bastards have been abusing a 'loophole' to minimise their tax bill. Agreed. And perhaps having to calculate your annual spend and determine what is tax exempt you have a better understanding of your spending habits and a firmer grasp on your debts. Think again.

People who are able to hire an accounting firm (FML - they have been advertising the shit out of accountancy firms here the last few weeks) will have a better outcome than Joe Schmo who doesn't have an MBA. Joe Schmo still doesn't really understand all the intricacies of the tax system, and rarely finds loopholes, and has as much awareness of his own spiraling debt as his cousin in the UK (so says the current average credit card debt per household in the US: $15,191, added to the $8.15 trillion owed in mortgages and $1,115.3 billion in student loans. In total household debt is up 3.7% on last year.** Excellent work! That system seems to be bang on. Keep it up.*)

The cynic in me thinks that maybe the massive accountancy firms that benefit from this ridiculous tax situation may have friends in high places? Why change a system that keeps thousands (millions?) employed and makes the big accountancy firms alot of money? Anyhoo, I think even Joe Schmo might be a bit reluctant to go through another big change (see Obama care, which everyone constantly winges about). And afterall, this is the land of the free, and we are free to do our own tax calculations. Lucky us.

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*Just in case you missed the sarcasm, its there. Its always there.
** Join me in the big fact hunt: http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/

Credit card, my arse. The clue is in the name!

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So, my credit rating in the UK is pretty good, but that's not good enough for a Californian car company (despite printing out my Experian report), so it's time to build some US credit.

First task - find someone to take a chance on this gal and give me a credit card.

Denied - I am on a H4 visa, so no Social Security Number and, subsequently, no credit card (seriously starting to feel very unwelcome right now).

New plan - the husband is welcome in this country, and working for a lovely big company, so, armed with an SSN he should be able to get a credit card, a cuddle and perhaps even a blowie. Not quite that simple - still no credit record in the US, so he has to start at the bottom (husband is not a 'start at the bottom kind of chap. Not 'appy).

Someone should really explain the notion of a credit card to the people we dealt with. We are now the proud owners of a 'secured credit card' that involves $x being taken from our current account and put on the 'credit card' each month. That, boys and girls, is not a credit card. The clue is in the name. There is no credit involved. That's my effing money that you just moved. I could have done that myself. I'm giving myself credit. And by that reckoning, may I ask why you want to CHARGE me for this service that I can provide myself. Oh no, my love, you can take that charge off, post haste.

On the plus side, negotiation seems to be a standard approach here, so kicking up a bit of a fuss over the charge worked well. They have some leeway, and don't seem to get offended, which is a very different to the UK.

Anyhoo, it's not a problem, because we only want to use this damn plastic to prove that we can be trusted with this Monopoly money we call the dollar in order to give ourselves a credit rating in the US, which you will need if you want to do anything (rent an apartment, lease a car, get a loan for a car etc).
I'll report back in 6 months, when we should, apparently, have proved ourselves worthy of a credit rating of some description.