we are stardust

It's ok, the atoms in the tax forms were also forged in ancient stars.
- This is such a dumb comment, I love it. It honestly made me feel better about things. Everything is just star remnants trying to coexist.

And behold God said "You will create an arbitrary way to live that has no meaning among the rest of my creations, and you will kill each other for it."

That mantis shrimp familiar is badass.
Do familiars count as dependents?
- Not sure about dependent tax cuts, but you might need a firearms license for that particular familiar!

speak for yourself, yank.
I live in a country that is in the sweet spot between me telling the government how much I owe them, and the government reaching directly into my account to pay off a debt I did not know I had
- as someone out of work in sweden my interaction with taxes consists of getting a mail that my taxes are ready, checking the document to see "income: 0, tax: 0", and sagely nodding before going about my day like usual.
  Like this is literally the tax document i get:
- Good for you
  
  Good for me

I remember learning that most atoms heavier than hydrogen and helium came from supernovas and it blew my mind. It was explained in a book in the college library that I checked out for no reason other than it being fascinating.
It also talked about dendrochronology - the science of dating wooden objects like boats and buildings by the tree rings in the wood. Rings from different trees of known ages have been matched with trees from other eras with partially overlapping patterns, creating timelines that span thousands of years. These can be matched up with wood used by humans, in some cases pinpointing the exact year the wood was cut down.
There was a chapter about how magnetic particles in rocks line up with north when the rocks form. Measuring how far off they are tells us about the movement of the land they're on, helping map continental drift.
I'm just scratching the surface - this book covered a broad range of subjects. The jacket said it was meant to be a textbook for an introductory course in cosmology. This was all way back in the 1970s and for many years I've struggled to find this book again. I even physically looked for it in the library during a college reunion. No idea of the title or authors.
- I'd suggest scanning here: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=cosmology&datePublished=1769-1979&itemSubType=book-printbook&itemSubTypeModified=book-printbook It is like searching all major libraries at once.
  
  Thank you! The first one on that search looks like it could be the one, except I'm sure the word "Cosmology" was not in the title. It might have contained the word "universe" but I just don't know. It's a real needle in a haystack.

"We are stardust"
Joni Mitchell-Woodstock (1969 Live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26LYjMww0GY

Ah shit I still need to do that...
Sounds like a problem for April 14th Me
- I've always done my taxes ASAP and always avoided the traffic jam to get them in the mail on the last night. One year I was particularly happy about this, then on the night of April 14 my gf called up - "Can you drive me to the post office before midnight?" So there I sat in the traffic jam with all the other schmucks. I remember postal workers with shopping carts were going from car to car.
  
  "no" is a complete sentence btw.

Are taxes not also stardust?
- Yep, it's stardust all the way down.

- My next mage the ascension character

In the US? You have to pay taxes. Don’t need to file. See Substitute For Return (SFR). I’ve done this ever since the Bush administration.
Intuit are quick to point out the massive deductions you’re missing out on. Until you pay for their services, and those theoretical deductions evaporate.
- FreetaxUSA.com
  Free federal return. State is $15.
  
  Can you still just print and mail a 1040?
  2024 was my first year married, and my wife tells me I will be filing this year.
- many people, most actually, "do taxes" to file for a return. if they do not, they likely miss out on hundreds to thousands of dollars that were automatically collected with their paycheck that they did not owe. this is free to do, others linked freetaxusa, for example.

Oh fuck thanks for reminding me

... we are golden. and we got to get ourselves back to oligarch tax cuuuuuuuuts, yeah.

There is nothing wrong with paying taxes when you're part of a society. You use the amenities, so you pay your part.
Stop acting like it's something bad. True wizards know living alone isn't fun, nor wise.
- Glad I'm not the only one who hates the sentiment
- Ah, my friend.
  Mayhaps you've been hitting the halfling's leaf a bit hard? They're not taking about paying taxes, but filing them.
  Those 'Muuuricans need to spend a whole lot of time every year doing paperwork on shit the government already has all their info on, so their corporations can fatten even more.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj4anUL-LvY
  My guess is you might be European an we mostly use return-free tax filing systems. In that the government sends you a paper saying "this is what we're going by, any objections?" and then you have a few months to claim tax deductions if there's anything you've not deducted. Otherwise you don't need to "file" the taxes in any way.
  But yah general sentiment against taxes is stupid.
  
  European indeed. I can imagine that wizards on other continents have less pleasurable experiences.