do my taxes

Hmmm. My transcripts never arrived so I re-requested them.

New target date: 11/20/09

with these most recent papers. Then did the necessary research. And now I know why my move to a major city means I will have to pay a lot more taxes than I had anticipated (and I had factored that in). Apparently a new tax law went into effect last year which changed many of the calculations. They call it a reform. Heh, heheh.

<sigh> Nothing I can do, but to sign and send off those papers and then pay.

to a refund this year, as part of the income tax has already been refunded to me via my company… but those expenses that came with the house, such as extra insurance, or money spend on education, have to play a role. It would be great to get a little something back. I’ve got a shoebox of receipts and my spreadsheets and this shouldn’t take more than half a day and maybe I can get T. to join forces with me…

sat down today and read the papers. I’ll have to repeat this, but for now I have a general idea. Little steps and all that…

I’ve gotten some tax papers back – I really need to sit down and read them thoroughly and then send off an answer. I usually would have done this pretty much at once, but such matters have not seemed important in the past weeks. Still, I need to get this done.

Found a tax accountant near my place and dropped off my papers (the tax transcripts haven’t arrived yet, but they can get started with most of my papers).

It was super easy to call & find a time to drop by.

Interestingly, they charge by the form rather than by the hour.

I hope it’s not going to be expensive.

On the bad side, he said I wasn’t entitled to a refund for 2005 (I was expecting one for that year) since 2005 was more than 3 years ago. Not good.

I did not know this law existed. I swear I was late more than 3 years 1 time and still got my refund. Hmmm…

I requested all my transcripts from the IRS. This means they send me all my tax statements for each of the years I missed: W2s, 1099s, etc.

I was missing a few of them so they are sending me ALL W2s, etc. to me.

CHECK: All forms are ready or are on their way. They should arrive within 7-10 days.
NEXT: Make an appointment with the tax return preparer (hmm, what exactly is their job title?). The papers should arrive and be ready by the appointment date.

IRS’ deadline for me: 45 days.
My deadline: 2 weeks.

Hopefully the papers arrive in a week.

And the beat goes on…

just got it back!

Just getting started is sometimes the hardest thing.

After I started today to organize my papers, I began to see the light and I had organized most (maybe all) of my required tax papers by Year. I almost caught myself saying a little prayer that went something like:

Please God, if I ever get this done, I swear I’ll do my taxes on time from here on…

Finally, after working on it twice today, I have 4 folders (2005-2008): 1 for each year of taxes I missed. I may be missing a tax statement or 2 so I’m going to call the IRS (they should be able to tell me which statements are the minimum required ones needed for one to file – I know this because I did this some years ago when I was late with taxes. I know, it only takes me a few times to get hit on the head before I learn something).

In addition, I got a couple of phone numbers for someone to do my taxes. I went to Yahoo Yelp – a great resource – at least in the quaint, quirky, little city I live in.

So, my To Do list:

1. Call the IRS. Check what statements (W2, etc.) need to be filed according to their records.
2. Call the tax return accountants and make an appointment

I think I’m on a roll.

Feet don’t fail me now.

Amen.

When: End of September.

I’m pretty organized, but I seem to procrastinate with filing taxes—even when I’m getting money back (I know, right?). I seem to have an aversion to doing taxes. Perhaps it’s because it’s detailed work that’s so easy to procrastinate on.

Plan:

At this point:

1. Gather my documents together.
2. Hire someone to do my taxes (a few years worth).

Pronto.