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Charlie Hatton
Watertown, MA
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* Scheduled to coincide with the first full day of Spring Training, please see Bugs & Cranks for the latest on the Atlanta squad:
Anatomy of a Brave: A head-to-toe look at the Braves' chances for success in the new season.
And now, back to your regularly-scheduled content. Cheers.
It feels a little strange to be thinking of taxes so early. When we've handled our taxes ourselves, we've never started working on them in the middle of February. Or late February. Or March, or typically until April 14th at nine in the evening when my wife looks over and asks, 'Hey... what day is this?'
"This isn't like rock tumbling or stamp collecting or open-heart surgery -- something could actually go wrong."
Thus begins a three-hour tour of our financial records, pay stubs, credit card receipts, and various bits of paper with cryptic things like 'J14Q9B - $700' written on them.
(What could it mean? Is it a savings account number? A winning lottery ticket code? The license plate of a car we smooshed, and the cost of the repairs? It's a mystery.)
We keep all of these records in the same standard, secure place everyone keeps them -- in a shoebox in the far corner of our least favorite room. The box collects dust for three hundred and sixty-four days a year, until our mad dash with the calculator to make the numbers on the bits of paper add up. Or to look reasonable. Or at the very least, to not suggest that we owe back taxes equal to the gross national product of Venezuela.
It's all different this year. Our mad dash -- 'Oh shit, honey, the appointment's in the morning!' -- happened tonight, almost two full months before taxes are due. And now we'll have an experienced set of eyeballs poring over our shoebox filing system. He likely won't know what the bits of paper mean, either -- but at least we'll have an expert opinion about whether they're likely to cause the feds to come storming after us. If that's the case, maybe we'll move to Venezuela. I hear extradition from South America is a real bitch.
So, we're taking the shoebox to the tax man. By the end of the session, we'll owe whatever small fortune the IRS wants... and another little ransom for having the tax return prepared. I'm pretty sure we have to bring our own envelopes. And stamp licking is an extra fee, apparently.
But at least if we get audited, maybe we can send the tax man to Venezuela. I hope he needs a tan.
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I have a nice alternative for you. Sell the house, lose the wife, and do everything all yourself. Then you need only Turbo-Tax. It really makes it all worth it. Sigh.
Bitter, party of One, your table is ready.