Don't forget your taxes!

[missioncontrol]

here's a good laugh..........

Internal Revenue Service
Department of the Treasury
Washington, D.C. 20001
March 09, 2005

RE: My Tax Remittance for 2004

Enclosed is my 2005 Form 1040, together with payment.  Please take note of the attached article from USA Today archives. In the article, you will note that the Pentagon paid $171.50 each for hammers and NASA paid $600 each for toilet seats.

Please find enclosed in this package four toilet seats (value $2,400) and six hammers (value $1,029). This is in payment for my total tax due of $3,429.

Out of a sense of patriotic duty, and to assist in the political purification of our government, I am also enclosing a 15" Phillips head screw, for which HUD duly recorded and approved a purchase value of $2,200, as my contribution to fulfill the Presidential Election Fund option on Form 1040.

It has been a pleasure to pay my taxes this year and I look forward to paying them again next year in accordance with officially established government values.

Sincerely,
Another satisfied American taxpayer

[jbox]

Australian programs is much better.  As you get a minimium of 4 weeks off and when you take a holiday, you get an extra 25% to you pay.  The increase is probably do to the fact it costs you a fortune to fly from Australian to else where in the world.

<d&g>Just wait until we get a law making AWA's compulsory come July. Stupid Democrats.  </d&g>

And I would refuse to work at any job that didn't pay out holiday leave at the end of the term, otherwise you can almost guarentee they are going to try and short change you at the end. Last place I worked actually started getting nervous and told some of their older folk they couldn't *officially* quit until after they took an X-week leave first so that they could put the expense in a different column. 

[paigeoliver]

Not trying to rub salt into any wounds, but in the US you only get awarded 2 weeks holiday per year, is this right?

So if you want to go overseas for 6 weeks you have to sacrifice holidays for three years for them to accumulate?

Australian programs is much better.  As you get a minimum of 4 weeks off and when you take a holiday, you get an extra 25% to you pay.  The increase is probably do to the fact it costs you a fortune to fly from Australian to else where in the world.

This is an interesting thought, I don't believe the extra cash we receive (which we call "leave loading") was introduced to subsidise air travel, but I am sure in many cases this loading does go towards travel. Being an Aussie it is more likely to end up at the pub!

I am quite fortunate to work for an employer who gives us the option of the standard 4 weeks holiday per year plus leave plus loading, or 5 weeks holiday per year without the extra cash. This is pretty rare.

There has been talk here recently of scrapping the leave loading, my last job did not have this but the extra 17.5% was incorporated into my yearly salary. This is starting to become commonplace.

Accumulating holidays is normally at the discretion of the employer. In my experience most don't mind as long as they have notice to plan around any prolong absence.

The extra week vacation vs. the extra 25 percent would make a lot of financial sense for some companies.

It wouldn't make any difference at a factory where you have to have someone at every position.

But in most office environments a missing person just means everyone else has to absorb more work. Thus the company saves money by giving the person an extra paid week leave vs. the extra 25 percent over 4 weeks.

I know the owner of my hotel absolutely loves to iniate hiring freezes on office/desk/van staff and just have the general manager pick up the slack until it gets to the point where that becomes impossible, at which point he lets her hire a few people and then iniates another freeze until it get rediculous again.

When I started at my current hotel we would always have 2 desk clerks, 2 van drivers and a manager on every shift except overnights. A few years later the owner sent his workaholic GM over, and now we have ONE desk clerk on each shift (on day shift this is the GM six days out of the week), no manager (except when the GM is filling a desk clerk spot, which she does 6 days a week), and one van driver.

Essentially he chopped a 5 person staff down to 2 people. He doesn't run the property that HE works at that way, but since he doesn't have to see this one he just runs it rediculously understaffed and saves the money. HIS property has 2 van drivers, 3 desk clerks, and a manager. 

[namzep]

At my job, we get 14 annual leave (vacation days) and 12 holiday days per year.  On top of that, we also get 22 days of sick leave a year.  I love working for the state, sometimes.