If you drive a car, I'll tax the street, > If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat. > If you get too cold I'll tax the heat, > If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet. >
Don't ask me what I want it for > If you don't want to pay some more > 'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman >
George Harrison, “Taxman” from Revolver, 1966 The Beatles
Yes, it's that time of year again in the United States, when millions of people spend today filling out variations on the 1040 [1] form as required by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) [2].
Years ago I used to have it done by H&R Block [3] but that changed around '97 or '98 when one of the accountants at the company I worked at did my taxes for me. “Sean,” she said to me, “do you mean to tell me that you've never deducted your mortgage interest payments?” I think she felt sorry for me so we went over my taxes.
The following year (since I wasn't working there anymore) I did them by hand. The dreaded 1040, with schedules.
It's not all that bad, just very tedious and some years, quite confusing (one year, to continue filling out the 1040, you needed the result from Schedule D. Unfortunately, the way Schedule D (Capital Gains and Losses) was written, you needed to finish the 1040. Oops) but over all, I find it more tedious than confusing.
And like most Americans, I tend to procrastinate the filling out of the dreaded 1040. Like this year (I just now finished. Sigh). This year is not that bad—only 1040 and Schedules A (Itemized Deductions) and B (Interest and Ordinary Dividends). There have been years that I've had to fill out Schedules A-D (Schedule C is Profit or Loss From Business—freelancers get hit with this) plus Schedule SE (Self Employment Tax—where you get to pay 7.5% for Social Security as an employee, and an additional 7.5% for Social Security as an employer). So I'm filling out this year's taxes when I have to calculate Schedule A and I see **“Medical and Dental Expenses.”**
Ooooh! Ooooh! I had medical expenses! Emergency room and everything! So I spent the next hour looking for receipts. I knew I had them, but ever since the move I don't know where anything is anymore. I found a missing check book, my map of West Palm Beach County and pieces of my 2000 tax return. Digging deeper into some boxes I finally found the receipts only to find out that they didn't exceed a minimum amount.
Grrrrrrr.
But I was able to take off the home mortgage interest and property taxes for a nice tidy sum to take off my gross income, which certainly helped things. All in all, I over paid my taxes so I do get a refund which is very nice (there were years I owed taxes. That's not fun).