My First Job and First Tax Return | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I asked my brother to put down some memories for our family history book. Here is his email to me. Used with his Permission.

    Just killing time on a lousy weather day; I can't do anything outside, 65 degrees, very cloudy and overcast, stiff breezes and not the first sign of a ray or speck of sunshine. So I decided since tomorrow is tax deadline day I would give you a tidbit and some reading material for today.

    When I was 8 years old in 1948, I helped a guy deliver papers 7 days a week, and he paid me $2 a week. Big bucks for a little kid those days because a coke cost 5 cents and a loaf of bread was 12 cents and it only cost 10 cents to go to an all day Saturday movie.

    Well when I was 12 years old, I had two paper routes of my own. There were two verions then, The Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Journal. The first was the morning and the second was the afternoon. They asked me if I wanted to be the branch manager (that is where you pass out the papers to all the other kids, then after they have left to run their routes, I ran my own two paper routes); and I accepted the job as it was a salary position paying $ 12 a week, 1952. I remember when I got my first check I had to ask my Dad what the hell was withholding tax and FICA tax, and he tried to explain it to me. FICA tax was 1 cent per week. Still big take home bucks back in those days for a little kid 12 years old.

    I had to open my own checking account at the Citizens and Southern National Bank in Little Five Points in Atlanta, Ga. and write checks to pay my bills. My Dad insisted I give him $2 per week for "room and board." He saved it for me and gave it all back to me eventually because he knew I was not saving anything, and was pissing it away as fast as I could make it on new bicycles, baskets, scooters, sidecars, toys, movies, crap and junk foods, etc.

    What occasioned this in my mind was I distinctly remember the first tax return I ever filled out. My Dad could not help me because he only had a 6th grade education and left school to work as an electrician's helper to help support his divorced mother who ran a boarding house. His father was a no-good half ass detective. My mother had to help me and all she said was that I was "money hungry for a kid my age."

    In any event, I only had to fill out a 1/2 page 1040 EZ form, and did not fully understand why I had to "pay taxes." It was my first experience at supporting old Uncle Sam and learn what it costs to live in this great country. The tax return my wife and I just completed was 35 pages long and has everything on it including the depreciation of the "kitchen sink." I did not think they could make it more difficult but they have. In addition, I am now once again convinced that the worst Federal Agency there is, to date, is the Infernal Revenue Service (as my dear old departed Dad used to call it).

    Whatever happened to the good old days? Of course, I am sure at some point in his life; my young son will refer to these as the good old days.This is just a tidbit for the family history project.

    Your Bro, Jim.