Wow (and Crap!)

Here's how powerful "blogging the lost" is:

I woke up this morning in a panic about our taxes and decided to buckle down today and start working on them. But I couldn't find last year's taxes anywhere! Not in the file drawer where they'd belong if only I were the organized person I used to be. Not on any of the flat surfaces in the apartment where things do tend to pile up now that I'm no longer the organized person I used to be. Nowhere.

Granted, I've done a heck of a lot of sorting and tossing and recycling in my search for this file. And there's a whole file drawer now empty and a whole corner of the study that is now pile-less. But no taxes.

Finally I decided to follow the wisdom of the blogosphere and blog about the thing that was lost in order that it might be found. (So this is kind of a secular, electronic St. Anthony, I guess?)

And lo and behold, on my way to the computer, what should I spy but a little pile of papers I hadn't seen before, and right there in the midst of them was last year's taxes! It was apparently enough to *intend* to blog the lost, without even having to get to the computer!

Now, who knows why the file was in that pile, and I solemnly pledge to put both last year's and this year's taxes safely away in the appropriate file drawer once I'm done with them, but at the moment I'm concentrating more on this wonderful feeling of relief.

Okay, having found last year's file, it's time to tackle this year's. Sigh. We have incredibly complicated taxes, D. and I, such that you'd think we had a heck of a lot more money than we do.

E.T.A. Crap! On closer inspection, I realize that the file contains my taxes from last year's but not D.'s. So the search continues. Apparently one does need to actually go ahead and blog the lost after all; intention is not enough.

Comments

[ppb]

I avoid taxes until the very last minute tax party.

[hypatia cade]

I'm sorry to have to ask... but why do you need last years taxes in order to do this years?

PS ppb - the trick to doing taxes is to do them early. If you owe money, mail them apr 15. If the govt owes you money mail them right away. This year I have mailed my fed. forms but I'm sitting on my state ones (!)

[What Now?]

Hypatia, I'm the one doing D's and my taxes this year, but for the last five years my mom has done them for us. She's actually a licensed tax preparer, so that's not quite as infantilizing as it sounds. It was still a little humiliating, although we were also very grateful (ah, families!). This year, our moving much further away provided a good excuse for us to break that recent tradition and for me to take over our taxes again. And it's really helping to use last year's taxes as a guide for this year's. At least, it's working that way for mine; I still haven't found D's! I'm also finding myself calling my mom with questions about the process, but that's a fine thing; it was having her actually do them that was getting problematic.

[hypatia cade]

Having a family member do taxes doesn't sound infantilizing to me... but maybe that's because my granddad is a CPA and periodically has done mine or my parents taxes when its been a complicated year.

The way you wrote about it, I thought you meant that you had to copy numbers over from them and I was trying to figure out what tax break(s) I might have been missing along the way. Missing something that would benefit me IS my one fear of doing my own taxes.

[timna]

does your mom have them online or were they filed as paper documents?

[Scrivener]

Turned up yet?

[Sfrajett]

At least you THOUGHT about your taxes. Which is more than I've done. Hope you get some dollars back!