Tax Time

My father-in-law is a CPA. My uber-cool brother-in-law has a cool MAcc. after his name. My brother loves all things monetary. Me? I hate tax time. I want a flat tax. I get irritated by the complicated tax laws and convoluted forms. And I get downright grumpy every time we do them (except for that rebate thing).

Every year, we have a conversation that goes something like this:

Me: I want to sit and do taxes together, so please let me know when you're doing them.

Ever-so-patient Hubby: Okay.

Me: I'm serious. I know I get totally grumpy when we do them, but I really do want to try to better understand the stupid tax codes and laws. Even though I think we should have a flat tax.

Ever-so-patient Hubby: Okay.

Me: I mean it. I really want to do it. Together.

Ever-so-patient Hubby: Okay.

My ever-so-patient hubby collects all the paperwork, receipts, W-this, that, or the other 1040, various tax forms, tax software, etc. and lets me know that he's ready to sit and go through the program. With me.

So we sit down and from the very first Turbo Tax prompt, I'm grumpy.

"Why do they want our names?"

"Because it's kind of important."

"Oh. Well. See? It's just another way they get you. Big Brother is watching!"

My ever-so-patient hubby offers to enter in all of our personal information since it's "mundane" and "even a trained monkey could do it" (translation: Let me do this and then we can deal with the grumpiness during the tax portion only). Fine by me.

So we sit down and start the process that you *think* will take you an hour or two. Three tops.

"This is so stupid. We should have a flat tax."

"I know, but we have to do this."

So, I take a deep breath and start out excitedly figuring out every possible way we can get a tax break because, let's face it, we're barely starting to make money and we have LOADS of indebtedness. All kinds. I'm almost hyper trying to figure out the tax system and how to make it work for us. The little refund tally in the upper right hand corner goes up a bit and then tauntingly stagnates for 43 screens.

3 weeks and 12 hours later you're still on the 3rd tab in (of 8) answering questions like "Did this piece of furniture that you purchased for your business and is only positioned in the rooms you have designated for your home business in which rooms you have no other personal use nor would you dare because you would so be audited have anything to do with the ethanol fuel program or did any money used to purchase this piece of furniture come from a Gulf State Relief Program and would you like to take depreciation on this all at once or over the years and when did it get put into use and did you use it as a personal chair beforehand or has it always been a business expense and if you're sure about this put "0" in the box, otherwise proceed to the next line where we ask you to figure out if the money you're getting from your side job is hobby-related or royalties."

This is when penny-pinching, let's-get-all-the-refunds-we-can-out-of-this me starts banging my head against the keyboard just to dull the pain from this mind-numbing exercise in bnhgbnhy tax deductions bgnhynhg screaming, "I don't care anymore! I don't want to answer any more of these asinine questions tonight! I give up!"

And then I see that it's 2AM and I literally (no, seriously) hear my pillow screaming for me to come to bed. Have I mentioned I favor a flat tax? And we thought we were going to watch a movie afterwards . . .

And my brother (we'll call him Mr. Moneybags) informs me today that since he makes lots of money and doesn't ever pay taxes, he's going to buy (insert Charlie Brown Adult Voice Sounds here) "Waaaahhhhh waaaaahhhh waaah waaah waaaaaaaah waaaaah"

"Yes, Mr. Moneybags, I do think it's neat that you're going to buy some cool add-ons for your mid-life crisis Miata and 2 large screen televisions."

I excitedly tell him that we're getting a really good refund and we're so excited because we can use it to pay down debt and refinance our house so we can pay down more debt and how neat is it that we're really starting to make money after being so cash poor and strapped for the past few years?!

To which he responds with a guffaw, "I don't think you "start" making money until you've paid off your debts." Wind. My sails. Out. Since, you know, that's like 400 thousand dollars away.

And now I'm sitting here blogging and eating a Starbucks hot chocolate called "Double Delish" (Yeah, that's right. Eating it. They're delicious little nuggets of chocolate joy. Double Delish nuggets of joy.) and I don't even emotionally eat.

But hey. We're done with them. We've worked hard and we're done with them for this year anyway. And please don't tell me you did it on February 1st. I'll give you a big la-te-da and you'll be on your merry way. I know. I've heard Suze Orman say a thousand times that you're letting the government collect on YOUR interest. Seriously, if that were my biggest financial concern, I'd dance in the rain. Naked.

However, I must say that I'm thrilled with our rebate (and credit, even though it's really an advance on next year's refund--boy, aren't a lot of Americans going to be peeved at that one next tax year). See, we're poor and hard-working enough to qualify for the "Earned Income Credit" and we're fertile enough to qualify for the "Child Tax Credit" and I'm pretty sure we qualify for the "Record for Highest Student Loans That Have Been in Deferment And You're Finally Paying Them Off Credit" as well as the "You're So Daring For Quitting Residency You're Probably Stupid Credit." Or something like that.

With the rising cost of gas and food, the refund is very helpful. We're not very good at splurging. We're the kind of people to whom others are loathe to gift money because they full well know we'll use it to do something crazy like pay MetEd or Sallie Mae. I know. Boring. I still don't know how people our age afford trips to Disney. We've been putting coins in our jar for about 5 years and I think we've earned enough to get us half a ticket in to Epcot.

On that cheery note, happy recession, everyone! And may all your tax refunds come expeditiously.