My night last night: Tax scofflaws and stupid employees.

[Eben56]

Thanks for the suggestion, but fortunately my son is now home and out of the service (studying character animation in Orlando.)

We moved all his accounts to our local credit union.

They seem to understand.

[Geek King]

As far as the tax-exemptions go, it makes sense when you think about it. A soldier is paid entirely from tax money- why bother saying, 'here, take this money, now give it back to me, so that I can hand it back to you again' (Of course, social security, medicare, etc. all still apply)...

Social Security checks are taxed, as are Police, Firefighters, Librarians, and Federal Geologists. I assume most other state/federal employees are taxed as well, but those are the ones I've know personally. Talking common sense and government in the same breath is a one-way trip to headache-land.

[Sliceanddice]

...not that I remember, no.

There is the ASVAB which is a sort of general-purpose test for competence areas and your level of intelligence. And it is written down, so he'd have to read it.

But, not everyone in the military is there to be a brain surgeon. The ASVAB breaks down scores into proficiencies, but also as an overall percentile of how smart/well-educated the person is. For example, I and most of the soldiers I worked with were in the high 90s. We maintained signal equipment.

my dad took that test (he join ed the amry but his knees kept him from finishing training cause of football trama by age 20 he had almost no cartilage) now i have no idea what he scored, I do know after the test the navy, marines, air force and army want him and to train for things like nuclear power and weapontry and other stuff....