It is finished

Yes, ladies and gents, I have finished and sent in my taxes! And all before the midnight deadline! I did not have to file an extension, since Ray has kindly managed to Band-Aid my computer together enough so that it can limp with me to the finish line. I had to pay more money than I was hoping, but hey, that’s my own fault for not paying enough estimated taxes during the year, and I know it.

I decided to send in my taxes rather than e-file because TurboTax actually charges $30 for the service of e-filing for you, and frankly, I’m already paying too much to the government right now. Give me a stamp and let me go to the post office, I say.

This year was even trickier than last year: TurboTax asked me more questions, different questions, and I got all confused and had to start reading tax code, which, of course, got me even more confused. After a very long talk with Ray, I decided that next year I’m letting his accountant do my taxes for me. There’s only one more year of filing single before we get married anyway, and since we own a house together, figuring out who will claim what on whose return gets very complicated and frustrating. What with the amount of time I spent poring over my finances and the amount of money I spent buying TurboTax (plus the extra state of NY…I get NJ for free), paying some guy $150 and not having to worry about it isn’t too bad a deal.

But I don’t have to worry about that at least until next January. In the meantime, I’m off to my TiVo to catch up on all the crack TV I’ve missed for the past week.

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Tax Blues

So I was working on my taxes all weekend, and being a self-employed singer, I actually have pretty complicated taxes with various deductions and mileage and things that need to be calculated. I could have been keeping a record of all these things daily, and I do actually keep pretty good daily records, but of course, I was waiting until the last minute to cobble everything together so I can enter it all into TurboTax.

I should have done all this in January when I was thinking, “Gee, maybe I should do my taxes now so I can get them out of the way.” But did I? No, instead, I wait until right before EASTER, one of the busiest times of the year, to try to get everything done.

Still, I thought, it’ll only take a few hours of intense work. Not too bad, right? I can do it.

Not bad thinking, except that the little hamster inside my computer decided that now was the time to give up the ghost. I was greeted on Monday morning by the blue screen of death, and although Ray has worked on it for two days, all I can do on my computer now is check my email and post this little blog. I tried doing three tasks at once about five minutes ago, and Windows told me there was a runtime error, so I quickly closed the third window and am frantically typing this so that I can get it sent off before my computer dies again.

In the meantime, I think I need to get an extension from the IRS, because I’m sure I won’t get my taxes done in time. Argh.

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