Sunday afternoon rolled around. April 12. Only three days to go. I had put it off as long as possible. I could wait no longer. Settling into my chair, I stared at the computer screen. This was going to be long. This was going to be painful.
One by one, I entered each paper’s numbers on the screen. Form after form. Figure after figure. The numbers danced. My heart sunk. My wallet ached.
After about an hour, my 11-year-old son Jacob appeared at my side and asked if I could play with him outside. With a deep sigh, I explained in a defeated tone, “No, I’m doing taxes.”
“Doing taxes.” It sounds harmless enough, but in actuality so painful. I remember as a child how my father would hide away for what seemed like days, as he entered figures onto random forms. I imagine a tape calculator burning through deductions. Smoke rising from the pain. Ah, the pain. Pain that stretches across time and generations. Pain that should qualify as a deduction.
Another twenty minutes passed. Jacob once again appeared by the computer and asked in a hopeful plea, “Are you done, yet?” Oh son, how I wish I were done. Oh son, how I wish.
Golee, no fun. After we submitted everything electronically (on the 13th and 14th) it dawned on me that filling out paper forms would have been easier. We had our federal rejected the first time we submitted, same errors as last year.
We adjusted our withholding rates to have less to pay at settling up time and that was an improvement on last year. When we were working we tended to match withholding and taxes owed better. Hope you got done on time! We had some spreadsheets of our deductions filled out some weeks ago but like you, ended up finishing just this week.
Elaine,
We finished on time… with about 7 hours to spare. It was still painful however… I had saved money for April 15 and I thought I was ready, but alas, it is always worse than expected. Ha! The pain… it’s unavoidable… ugh… thankfully, the next time around is almost a full 12 months away 🙂
Lovin’ every penny,
Dave