For Valentine's Day I... Did My Taxes 😂
Feb. 14th, 2021 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerToday is Valentine's Day. Hawk and I both disdain the commercial traditions surrounding the day. We're glad that means neither of us feels pressure to do any of the stuff Corporate America wants us to spend lots of money doing. Instead of writing further about all the dumb things we don't do on Valentine's Day, I'll write about what we did do this Valentine's Day. For me, at least, that's taxes. As in, I got most of my tax filings done today.
"But don't you just hate taxes?" a lot of people whine.
No, I don't. And I'll tell you why. 1) Paying taxes is our responsibility as citizens. Sure, I'd love to skip paying taxes and get everything for free, but that's just not adult. 2) Even though the process is way more complex in the US than in many other Western countries I don't find it that appalling.
Part of the common loathing of taxes is the trope of putting them off until the 11th hour and then panicking. Tax Day in the US is Thursday, April 15. The trope of people rushing to the post office late night on the 14th abounds. (Sophisticated procrastinators routinely file 6 month extensions... which only delays their panic to mid-October.) But why wait?
I worked on my tax filing done today because almost all the documents I need for it are ready already. W-2s were available weeks ago, as were the simplest 1099s. More of our 1099s came out two weeks ago, and the last I needed was released yesterday. Again: why wait?
It helps also that I've given myself even more of a head start than beginning 2 months before Tax Day. I actually started fourteen months ago. Every year I keep careful records starting on Jan 1. Another common trope about why taxes suck is sorting through a shoebox full of crumpled receipts. None of that here! My crumpled receipts are already presorted into folders by topic. 😏
"But don't you just hate taxes?" a lot of people whine.No, I don't. And I'll tell you why. 1) Paying taxes is our responsibility as citizens. Sure, I'd love to skip paying taxes and get everything for free, but that's just not adult. 2) Even though the process is way more complex in the US than in many other Western countries I don't find it that appalling.
Part of the common loathing of taxes is the trope of putting them off until the 11th hour and then panicking. Tax Day in the US is Thursday, April 15. The trope of people rushing to the post office late night on the 14th abounds. (Sophisticated procrastinators routinely file 6 month extensions... which only delays their panic to mid-October.) But why wait?
I worked on my tax filing done today because almost all the documents I need for it are ready already. W-2s were available weeks ago, as were the simplest 1099s. More of our 1099s came out two weeks ago, and the last I needed was released yesterday. Again: why wait?
It helps also that I've given myself even more of a head start than beginning 2 months before Tax Day. I actually started fourteen months ago. Every year I keep careful records starting on Jan 1. Another common trope about why taxes suck is sorting through a shoebox full of crumpled receipts. None of that here! My crumpled receipts are already presorted into folders by topic. 😏
