I spent five hours Monday working on our taxes. Yes, I've put it off this year, having loaned The Pony my CD/DVD player to load his tax software. Neither of our laptops have one these days. I would have gotten The Pony a download for his taxes, but wasn't sure how complicated that would be, coming to my email. Anyhoo... The Pony had been a bit busy with work, and then the unfortunate skin piercings courtesy of canine teeth. Then when I got my player back, I was busy with other stuff.
Granted, 30 minutes of my efforts was tied up with my TurboTax CD not wanting to load. When I finally got it, Farmer H walked in. I know you won't believe this, but sometimes he's a DISTRACTION! Then I had to set up an Intuit account, because you can't use TurboTax anymore without it. Just more spying, methinks! But that was actually the easiest thing I did.
While I had Farmer H captive in his recliner, I called for info to complete his business tax portion. Of course he did not have it all, and had to trek down those 13 rail-less steps to the basement to retrieve some details. Then he kept answering in his normal way.
"Okay, so what were the items for that expense?"
"Business cards."
"You spent over $300 on business cards???"
"No. Them was about $45."
"So where were the other items?"
"Business cards."
"You just said they didn't cost $300!"
"They didn't!"
"Then what was the rest for?"
"I told you! My business cards!"
"Listen to yourself! You are doing it again! You spent over $300. I got that. But I have to list what the things were you spent it on!"
"Oh. Well. Forms. I had to buy them packets of forms for the customers to fill out. And copies. I had to make copies. Every time I need something printed, like from my email, I have to go to the copy store for that, too."
"Okay. So forms and printing and copies. That's all I needed."
THEN he said his expenditure for electricity at his SUS2 (Storage Unit Store 2) was just what he estimated. He took one month, and multiplied it by 12.
"NO! You can't do that. I pay that bill every month! You reimburse us for it. You have to have records."
"I have them in all the emails they send when they say how much I've spent so far this month."
"That won't work. It might be more. I have it all in the checkbook register. I'll look it up. You write down the months, and I'll read off the amounts to you. It's easier than getting out the envelopes and opening each one."
I normally don't stress about taxes, but dealing with Farmer H is a trip! That portion took up 2 hours of my efforts. I'm wondering when I'll get my salary for being his secretary and tax preparer...
Anyhoo... after filling in the info for 7 of the 1099-R forms (that's money we get from retirement accounts) I gave up and saved my document until tomorrow. It's a lot of work for getting assorted small checks every month from previous jobs. But better than not getting them, I suppose.
4 comments:
Hah! Getting information from Farmer H is like asking a toddler where he has left something. Instead of going back through all those emails, might I suggest a note book and pen and everytime you get an email, you note down the month and the amount?
Also any download that comes to your email can just be forwarded to The Pony's email, for his convenience. the original stays on your computer and he gets his own copy. Easy-peasy.
River,
I know how to forward an email. What worried me was that now you have to have an Intuit account to download and use TurboTax. It's keyed to an email account. I didn't know if that would cause a problem, because I'd filed for The Pony a couple of years, using my email for notifications about acceptance of the tax returns, and the refunds. I didn't THINK I had already set up an Intuit account. I didn't want one of us to be denied access to the software.
Farmer H is always looking for a shortcut! Usually, his shortcut is for ME to do it for him.
Thanks for the explanation.
River,
I know it's hard to believe, but I usually have a reason for doing what I do! Even though it might not make sense to normal people!
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