do my taxes

or nearly. Now just adress the envelope, stuff it in and post it tomorrow morning. It’s actually quite a fat bunch of paper.

This was a tour de force. Why does it always come out like this?

... I figured the welfare thing out. Still wondering about the mess they made. German social system really sucks at dealing with things like precarious work.

I’m determined to set this as the one task I will tackle today! Gods, I even took a day off to do this.
Now where’s that Excel file I need…

Yay. Finally found out how many days I was absent from work last year.

It’s not a big thing, theoretically. But so many annoying details :(
I still have to count:
– sick days (fail to record them every year!)
– holidays (I fail to track them, too)
– how much welfare I got. My finance was a mess last year due to precarious work, and the slow reactions of the welfare agency even made it worse. This is the hardest part since it’s so poisoned with immense anger at official incompetence and sluggishness.

(Insert huge sigh of relief here.)

Not only did I save us a bunch of money by doing this myself (via QuickTax), but because of the new budget I had every last receipt, so we’re getting back a lot more than anticipated. Finally getting this done is a big load of stress off.

What a nice way to kick off the weekend!

And it’s a wash – the amount I get back from the feds will cover what I owe the state. But it’s done!

Unbelievably it looks like I’ll owe my state money! Ah.

I use Turbo Tax and usually go through it once, estimating as I go, then go back, find my documentation, plow through it, add it up and re-enter. I’ve just done the income part of the program and I was only $38 off my estimate! I was amazed. Now the fun part, expenses.

Back when I was working I was johnny-on-the-spot with my taxes. Now I’m so tired and depressed at my financial situation that the idea of sorting it all out so I can give the government more money is just awful. I have till August 15th. Yech.