Working on budgets and taxes is one of the main things in 2023 that I would love for people to learn. My mind is focused on financial literacy and also helping others to learn the same thing.
Tax season is coming up. A lot of people are overpaying their taxes. When you get a tax return, that’s your own money that you’re paying yourself back. That means you overpaid, and that’s not good, both on a personal level and also on a business level.
People are filling out forms and they barely understand what they’re filing out. Learning the tax forms, and learning the secrets of those forms, is important. Rich people have been doing this for years. A lot of times that people file taxes, they make mistakes. I want to inform people about that.
There are a lot of different tax forms for people who are disabled, or for people who have property. If you are a W-2 employee or a 1099 employee, you should know about that.
Some of the tax professionals help clients, but sometimes don’t pay attention, or they take advantage to get more money from the individual. The broker is taking a cut.
When you don’t know finances, that puts you in a poor position. That contributes to people being homeless. When we don’t know about certain tax audits, it puts us in a hole that we can’t get out of. We dig the hole so far and it’s hard for us to get out of that hole to be successful. We have a lack of knowledge on finances.
I tell people all the time, just because you see a person is outside and they’re homeless, that doesn’t mean you’re not homeless also. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck and you don’t understand certain things, we are all close to being homeless.
Each and every day, everybody should learn something. This is an important life skill, one of the main things you are supposed to have, to be able to teach your kids and family members and employees how to do the same.
Maurice Spears is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media
