In Over Your Head

April sounds like a beautiful time of the year, doesn’t it? Flowers are blooming even in the most stubborn of wintery states, the trees are beginning to leaf out, the days are warmer and longer, and flip flops are getting a little closer to being the choice of footwear for the day, unless you are lucky enough to be me and live in Florida, where every day is flip flop day! And then along comes the IRS!

It’s not the taxes. Okay, maybe it is, but it’s more about the paperwork! Even if you happen to be one of those mythical creatures that receives a refund, you still have to grind through the paperwork. Even if you use a CPA, because your taxes are complicated, not because you’re lazy, you have to collect the paperwork. Aaarrrgh! Who wants to spend Saturday and Sunday doing that? It’s spring for heaven’s sake!

Then what happens when your situation doesn’t fit into one of their nice little neat boxes? Our daughter ran into this. She’s always had a problem with, “One size fits all”, because it really doesn’t. I love these tax programs, like TurboTax. They are great programs for simple returns, but they are only as good as the people who write them, and the people who write them obviously didn’t think about every situation when making up their little boxes, or perhaps they’re just a little too cozy with the IRS, who excels at vague and ambiguous. Now, I know there is a solution to her situation. I’ve seen it on the IRS form, but there is no pathway to get there from here, because there is not an appropriate box to check that will take you there. Now what?

Well, you call, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, or you opt to let them call you back, whereupon you get a robo call telling you to press 1 if you still need to talk to someone, or 3 if you no longer need help. Now, my question to you is this, why would you still be holding if you no longer needed help? If you are doing that, you are way in over your head attempting to do your own taxes. I pressed 1, whereby Ms. Robot said, “Thank you” and hung up. What!?

I do have good news though. You will find April 16th through the 30th both beautiful and relaxing, with time on your hands to enjoy it. It’s something to look forward to while wading through the paperwork.