In what could be the most amazing tax move ever, a Georgia woman filed a $94 MILLION tax refund! You have to make over $1.6 billion dollars in income to pay $94 million taxes with Georgia’s 6% state income tax rate. Sure, it’s possible to make $1.6+ billion dollars, but probably not by this woman.

So how on Earth did she get caught pray tell? Investigators asked the woman to come to the supermarket to pick up her $94 million refund check. That’s when she was arrested.

Supposedly the woman kept calling in to the Georgia tax department asking when her tax refund would be ready. I guess if I was really expecting to get a check that big, I might not be able to help myself either! But a smarter person might have hired an impersonator instead for $500,000 to pick up the check for her and bounce. I mean, what’s paying 0.5% of your tax refund to drastically improve your chances of not getting caught anyway?

Stupidity can’t be the reason why this tax fraud happened. Greed must be the main reason wouldn’t you agree? Have a look at the video clip below.

The following is a guest post by FS reader, Jamin Eberhart. He received his MBA, worked in biotech and now consults for biotech companies. He is extremely focused on building his freedom fund, and struggles just like me to find the right balance between living it up and being fiscally responsible. 

The news media is always talking about how the top three costs for households are:

1. Housing (rent or mortgage)
2. Car (loan payments and interest)
3. Education or Child Care (student loans or child schooling)

FICA stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act and consists of a Social Security tax and a Medicare tax. This tax is very important for everyone to understand because so often we only think about federal tax rates and state income tax rates. The FICA tax is a big percentage of your total tax bill, especially for those making under six figures a year.

When I was making big bucks in finance, the tax bill was equally big bucks. The only saving grace was seeing my after tax paycheck increase after the maximum taxable income threshold for Social Security was breached each year. The tax amounts were jolting based on how inefficient the government was and still is with regards to spending our money.

For 2017, the maximum amount of taxable earnings for Social Security and Medicare is $127,500. In other words, an employee must pay 6.2% of any income up to $127,500 for 2017 = $7,905. But any dollar you make above $127,500 is free of the Social Security tax. Hence, a good goal for everyone is to make as much as they can over $127,500 as possible, right?

Not so fast. Given we have a progressive tax system in America with Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and deduction phaseouts, I’ve calculated that the optimal Adjusted Gross Income is roughly $250,000, +/- $50,000. At $250,000, $131,500 of the earnings is free from the 6.2% Social Security tax. Meanwhile, you still get most of your mortgage interest deduction, and only have to pay a slight amount of AMT, depending on the person. A $250,000 income is also high enough to live relatively comfortably in any part of the world.

Some might argue that the Social Security tax is regressive because it caps out at $127,500 in 2016. Why shouldn’t rich people pay more? Here’s the thing people might not understand. Social Security benefits cap out based on the maximum amount of Social Security tax contribution as well. It’s not like someone who is making $500,000, and not having to pay the 6.2% Social Security tax on $381,500 of his earnings is getting extra benefits based off his $500,000 income. He’s just getting the maximum Social Security payout amount when it comes time for him to collect based on the maximum taxable income amount he contributes.

The $500,000 income earner is already paying the highest marginal federal tax rate of 39.6% plus state taxes, if applicable.