How to do your taxes with ease

Even though someone else does our taxes, it takes me an afternoon to assemble all the information, and even then the adorable tax lady has to call me and ask for whatever page I mislaid or form I forgot, because it's a new form, just for this year.   

Finally, after years of this, I have concocted a system that made the process this year take exactly one hour. 

1) Don't put anything in the filing cabinet fir the entire year. Just plop it on top of the filing cabinet. 

1a) Go through the pile and extract anything tax related.

2) Take last year's tax documents and lay them out on the bed.

2a) Find this year's version of last year's document and separate them with a post it.

2b) Make a pile called New for once in a lifetime weirdness, like house sales.

2c) Make a stack of these pairs with alternating orientations (one up and down, next one on its side) Then double check and glean out last year's forms.

3) Applaud yourself. Seek out husband for more applause. 

4) Look at husband. Realize the new thing for this year was not only the house sale but the damn government required that husband has to take social security so you can be taxed on it. 

4a) Freak out. New thing is too new. New government is too new. News reports suggest you may need to visit the social security office in person.

4b) Try the online social security. Find password for the first of the two logins you will need. Password doesn't work. 

4b.1) Double-check password and find typo. Re-enter password.

4b.2) Steel yourself for multiple layers of navigation.

4b.3) Site reads your mind and says "Would you like your tax form?" SERIOUSLY. Right there, in your face, click Yes, click Print. 

So, today adorable tax lady gets the pile, and she may well tell me it is all wrong, but at least it's down to an hour instead of an afternoon.

Comments

[KC]

OOOOOF. I am glad you could print the tax form, though!!!

Also that is a brilliant system.

[theQueen]

KC - well I will almost certainly have done something wrong. Bit at least it felt right.

[Common Household Mom]

I applaud you loudly for figuring out how to take only an hour to assemble the stuff. I used to do our tax returns myself, but I made a mistake a few years back, and also the #&$$#* first iteration of this fascist regime changed all the tax forms to a format I was not used to. They thought they were being so cute. They (falsely) claimed that people could fill out their tax return on a postcard sized piece of paper. Ugh. I did not have the capacity to learn their whole new nasty incomprehensible way of doing it.

So we now pay many dollars to the accountant to do it for us. As you so rightly point out, it is STILL a time-consuming PITA to assemble all the documents, but at least I don't have to obsessively read the instructions over and over to figure out which number goes where.

Thanks for listening.

[theQueen]

CHM - (I don't know how you get your full handle in a comment to post. If I spell it out my comment goes directly to spam.) Thank you for your kind words. I too use a CPA because I did the taxes wrong once and I have never gotten over it.