Diseases and Taxes

My son just picked up his first tax form and booklet ever. I barely remember the 1040EZ, except that it was, well, easy. Hence the name, I guess.

We use a tax service. It just seems too complicated for us, even using software, not to mention the software isn't exactly cheap either. Also also, we can go in any time during the year (for free! We like free) to have them run a wee little estimate so that we know where we're at as far as owing or not owing. When you're running your own business, this isn't just a great idea. Our preparer told us that, as far as small businesses are concerned, we do really well. Too many don't pay enough taxes during their quarterly periods. They end up owing, and put themselves on a payment plan, meanwhile still paying their regular quarterly taxes for that same year. If they can't make ends meet they become tempted to pay a little less on their quarterly taxes then they ought to, and end up with another year of payments after coming up short for that year ... and they never catch up.

A friend of mine has whooping cough. It's going around in our area, and may be spreading around the U.S. in general. Be careful out there. Check with your doctor or local pharmacist and see if it's a good idea to have a vaccination. They don't last forever, so if you had one as a wee babe, it's probably no good anymore. It's especially critical for folks who are elderly, kids in school, and people with infants in the household less than 2 months (who are too young to be vaccinated, and are also the most likely to die if they catch it.)

The world is wonderful and beautiful and all that, but it's also full of icky diseases. Sometimes it's easy to brush off the idea of vaccinations. Medicine seems like it's pretty powerful. But even the bugaboos that we've supposedly 'conquered,' like chickenpox and pertussis (whooping cough) can still kill, and pretty nastily too.

Be careful!

The Money Eeeee

I got my paperwork together (the spiders are sad) and drove to my tax preparer's office in the other metro area that's close to my place.  I'm glad I can hug my tax preparer.  It helps to offset the inhumanity of it all.

We were so optimistic, too.  She had a four hour block and I mistook her to mean that she scheduled me for all of it.  We laughed about that, and then I told her I'd take the first hour.  

It ended up taking the whole four hours.  Good thing she didn't make any new appointments behind me.  Mr. and Mrs. Seven O'Clock were ten minutes early, and I'd just stood up to get my hug.

We went over oooooodles of forms.  Last week I picked up a bunch at the library for research, and if I got to it, an estimate.  I didn't get to it, which is just as well.  It would have been a totally worthless estimate.  I needed forms that they didn't have at the library.  I needed forms that my tax preparer, who's been working in the biz for twenty years, has never used.  

She had the patience of a saint.  I had the endurance of a writer accustomed to sitting in front of a computer screen and mucking back and forth over multiple pages until the whole looks just right.  We didn't seal the deal, though.  Although she had happy tags all over the diagnostics, she decided it would be best if the form got a thorough review before she shipped it off.  My form fees at work.  Thank you!!  (If you need tax preparation due to special circumstances, unusual forms, multiple forms of income with weird rules that don't apply to normal businesses or that come from overseas, and so forth, and you happen to live in the Portland/Metro area in the Pac NW, pipe up in comments and I'll give you contact info.)  

If I'd tried to do this myself, it would have taken days, and on top of that, it would have been wrong.  Dead wrong.  Wrong as in I'd have some interesting mail later on letting me know that no, I can't file the stuff that way.  As we worked through various permutations, I variously owed the government lots of money, ended up with a windfall, owed on state and not federal, and had magically disappearing itemizations that popped up again and then re-disappeared.

I learned lots of fascinating (actually, dreary and depressing) facts about tax law.  And I got to surf the internets for a little bit.  Meanwhile, outside a thunderstorm shook the city and hard winds yanked at the door.  Hail bounced on pavement and rapped on cars and windows.

The country code for Bermuda is BD.  We had to know this to complete the form.  Seriously.  Thank you, Google.  Remember the bad ol' days when you'd have to call a tax office or the post office (of course back then you'd get an actual human being) and ask them nicely, so, what does BD stand for?  BTW, my first guess was Barbados.  Wrong!  That's BB.  She guessed British something.  

All complaints are processed through BD, British Damnation.  Include a fireproof SASE.

Meanwhile, I bet my readers are all done with their taxes.  I'd envy you, but I'm too tired, and besides, my cat keeps licking my hand and purring madly so it's hard to feel any sort of negative emotions.  The kitteh has licked most of them off.  

Home stretch now.  And then, finally, we'll be done with the Money Eeeeeee!  Two weeks after that (on average) we'll have an automatic deposit, which we'll stash in case the sky falls.