The fact that doing our taxes every year completely and utterly stresses me out is probably the first clue that I should have majored in something different in college. Yes, I have a degree in accounting. And yes, the to-do list item called, “Do tax stuff” brings me no end of grief every year. (In my defense, I only had Tax for one semester, and every test in that class was open book. Plus, in Tax class, I didn’t actually have to pay taxes, just do homework about hypothetical tax situations. There’s nothing hypothetical about the W-2s, 1099s, and other assorted papers that have been piling up in my Inbox.)
The thing is, I don’t even really do our taxes. I assemble all the information, complete a Tax Organizer booklet (which involves filling in about a million little circles ala the SATs and transferring all the numbers from our forms to nice little lines in the booklet) and then hand things over to an accountant.
Even so, doing “my part” of the whole thing makes me ill.
Why do I have this crazy, irrational block against tax time? I’m really not sure. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid I’ll miss some obscure form and in 8.27 years, the IRS will audit us and we’ll owe $2,598,345.75 (well, we’ll actually owe $375.09, but after you add in all the late fees, penalties, etc., the figure becomes substantially higher). Maybe I just feel sick when I see the amount that we paid to the IRS in the last year. A good chunk of that money could have been put to better use — like buying books. Or maybe I’m just worried that I look like a real goof because here I am, with my nice little degree in accounting, and I don’t even do our own taxes.
Whatever the reason, I know it’s time to do the tax stuff when I start waking up at 2:30 a.m. with a knot in my stomach and the gigantic word TAXES hovering right in front of my eyes. And I can’t get back to sleep for an hour. And this happens several nights in a row.
I’m saying all this just to announce that I have done my part of the tax process for this year. Yes, it is completed. And look – it’s only March 6th! Yesterday morning, I dug through my piles of paper, sorted them, tried to figure out what each of them meant, filled in little circles and transferred numbers. And…voila! Done. And let me tell you, I slept so much better last night. No huge word TAXES haunting me, no waking at 2:30 a.m.
I can now relax. At least until next February or so, when it starts all over again.
ACK–taxes! We do ours with TaxCut, so it’s just filling in little boxes on the computer, but I still delay and delay as well. And while I delay, the cloud hangs over my head. I should get it out of the way in the next week or two as well. . . .
Oh my Gosh Katrina!! I was up until 1:00 am working on our taxes! I get the knot in my stomach too. I don’t even do the actual taxes. I just get everything ready and mail it to our accountant in Alabama. I do however have to do all the stuff for my business and that takes time and stress and 4 kids….I am leaving on my trip Thurs…more stress.. But happily I just got home from mailing the package out!! Yippee Sorry to ramble on your blog!!
Guys Relax. This is the good stuff isn’t it? Yes the good stuff–Freedom in the good ole’ USA.
I have been with my husband for 23 years and I am sad to say that I let him figure out taxes. I think this is the success to our marriage–Honey you do the fix-up things in the house, you do the yard, you do taxes and I’ll watch kids, manage their schedules, buy their clothes, them, feed them, and I’ll even do the laundry.
My husband is in retail so his income is different every year with bonus’s that vary.
We always file before the end of January and have money back before Valentines day.
Ladies I am not bragging I just wanted to congratulate you in getting taxes done. BRAVO! (I tossed out confetti with that cheer
)
In my house, I am responsible for paying the bills on time and my husband (thankfully) is the one who does the taxes. To tell you the truth, I think he has the easier job. I mean, I assemble all the info for him in the first place. And because he uses TurboTax, all the previous year’s info is already saved. All he has to do is doublecheck everything. BUT we just got our Federal refund in the mail yesterday – hooray! Now we can pay some more bills
Good job. Funny, but of all the things I hate to do, taxes aren’t one of them. We get TurboTax, I input the info and he does the deductions.
BUT I so do understand the knot-in-the stomach feeling. That’s how I feel about that one account at work. So I’m glad for you this is behind you for another year!
Ugh, I came by for the party, and ’cause I read about you on BooMama, In the Midst of It, and Blessed Beyond Measure, so wanted to come by and see for myself what all the hype is about, and I get a reminder that I still have to prepare OUR taxes for the accountant…I KNEW I should have been doing the dishes rather than blog-party-hopping!!
Okay, so I’ll go do the dishes, then start on the taxes, and THEN come visit you again when the topic is a little less guilt-inspiring! Hee-Hee-Hee!!!
I think I liked the idea of reading a lot…I’ll check into that the next time I pop in for a visit!
This post just made me appreciate my husband. All I do is sign my name at the bottom. I think I’ll tell him thank you!
I hear ya Katrina! We use the Quick Tax program but I still don’t enjoy doing it.
Laura
I wimped out this year on doing the taxes (I usually do them all by myself!). I let my wonderfully talented, and freshly trained, daughter, Liz, do them for me last week at her tax center!! All I had to do was gather all of the pertinent papers. I hope she plans on doing tax preparation next year, too! That was the easiest tax prep I’ve ever done!
I am so glad you got them done. I use Taxactonline.com and love it. I keep all my stuff in one spot and literally, the very second that we get the last piece of info–either the W-2 or mortgage thing; I complete them and hit submit. I can’t sleep well either unless they are finished.
Have a super week!
I’m right there with you–accounting major who uses TurboTax with a knot in her stomach… I have always worked on the audit side to keep away from taxes!