Filing your income tax return
Probably one of the worst things to do, besides seeing a dentist, is filing your yearly income tax return for the IRS. Everybody experiences this and believe me this is no fun project. Every year we have to go through the hassle of trying to figure out the IRS forms and wondering if we owe money or if the government owes us money.
I can speak wisely of this yearly drama because I have years of experience. When I was about eight years old, I remember my dad sitting at the kitchen table with copies of the tax forms and books explaining how to file your tax return. With a spiral note book and about three sharpened pencils, there were no calculators or computers to do the work, he would spread out all the files and work on filing our taxes. I knew then it would be sandwiches for dinner that night. But I was a precocious eight year old and believed that I was a math genius and cheerfully asked to help. My dad would just smile at me and say, “We’ll see.”
He told me that filing taxes was much harder than just adding up numbers. You have to make sure to get the right numbers in the right boxes and then make sure to add and subtract them correctly. Piece of cake I thought. I could do that. So I offered to help add and subtract the numbers for him. All he said was, “We’ll see.”
About four hours later I could hear my dad mumbling, “Damn taxes! Every time I add this up I get different numbers. Either we owe more taxes or the government owes us. Damn taxes!” That’s when I knew my assistance would be needed. I told him that I would add and subtract the numbers on the sheet to make sure which answer was correct. He gave me a blank stare and said, “Okay you do it.” After about 2 hours I too was mumbling, “Damn taxes! Can’t get these numbers right.” That night as we munched on our sandwiches we both agreed that tomorrow would be a better day to file our income tax return.
Today we have sophisticated tools to help us file our income tax return. From software either in a box or on line such as H&R Block or Turbo Tax to experts in filing income tax returns. Either method you use, I still hate filing my income tax return. We have tried just about every method. For a couple of years we went to our “tax person” and let her file our taxes. She was very good because we would bring her all of our information and by the time we left we knew if we owed or if we got a refund. We tried H&R Block online one year and that turned out to be a terrifying experience. I just didn’t feel comfortable with the results. So we went to an H&R Block office. We brought all of our information and sat there watching her put the information into a computer. Now I pride myself as being computer literate, so watching her input information into a software program which I believe I can do and then charging us $125, well it just didn’t sit well with me.
We will be using Turbo Tax for the second time this year to file our income tax return. Last year wasn’t such a traumatic event for me so I thought I would give it one more chance. Either way, I still remember my dad saying that you need to get the right numbers into the right boxes otherwise your income tax return is all wrong. Still gives me chills thinking about it.
Why can’t the government just charge all of us a flat tax rate and not require us to file income tax at the end of the year? Let me know your thoughts on that.
Until later,
Linda
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August 29th, 2007 11:06
Business and Personal Finance…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…