Six Months Later… Taxes

We were a little busy earlier in the year and while it has been a long time coming and many hours sitting at my desk, our taxes are finally done! It should be no surprise that after having printed out all our statements and highlighting our expenses I ended up with a packed well over a hundred pages thick. Not the biggest and not the smallest pile that we have handed off to our accountant. Of course, unlike last year, I did pull aside most of the 2015 documents needed for April… maybe next year we can simply file our taxes rather than an extension.

However, while I am hopeful for a small refund (even with this administration), it is little relief considering the bill that we will have to pay for having our taxes prepared. It is a flat rate but a rather steep one and it will take a pretty hefty sum to balance out that particular expenditure. By the time all is said and done, like every other year, I really have to take a closer look at the proposals for a simplified tax code rather than the hieroglyphics currently in use.

I believe this is a great time to start reaching out to the brethren and finding someone with whom I can trust our financial information. The place that we currently use definitely served its purpose for a while but the friend of the family that once handled our returns has long since retired and we have been passed around annually since then. They are strictly a service firm at this point rather than a place where there is a personal connection… time to move on.

It really is amazing when you think back on how long it takes to pull everything together especially when it is done in one shot rather than slowly over the course of the year. Well, it is a long process for me as I prefer to itemize all of our expenses especially the outrageous amount of medical expenses for which we are now responsible… thanks Obamacare! We could just file a simple return but why simply surrender part the money we earned over the past year? After all, the government didn’t temp for me during the year to take the day off so why should I pay them more?

In the end, the most important thing for us, especially now, is that this can now be marked as complete and we can devote our focus on many more important things in our life… especially the little stinky one. It is just annoying when tasks such as this occupy so much of my time, time that can be better spent elsewhere. Hopefully this is something I can avoid next year now that I have all the supporting documents up to date and an office is some kind of order even though it may not fit the definition of being organized.