the taxman cometh

well, this evening i had an exciting time of filing my taxes. this has gotton more tedious thanks to my semi-active stock trading where i have to enter the purchase/selling information in for every transaction. I did manage a 6% or so post-tax gain last year on my trading. could be better, but it's not negative at least.

however, the government sure took their cut this year, and my federal refund is basically going to be cancelled out by the debt i owe the state of virginia. when you're used to getting almost $1000 refunds things like this make you mad, now i understand why as the value of people's investments increase they become republicans.

alas, pay the tax man his due, it looks like that $400 laptop from bestbuy is going to have to wait a bit longer. at least i think the federal govt is proposing a 4.1% cost of living adjustment to base salaries this year, that's quite an increase over the normal 2% or so the past few years.